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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 


A   BIRD   IN   SIGHT 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 


BY 


JOHN   BURROUGHS 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

1905 
JJOSTON  COhLMiH^  LIBKAitil 


CMlltT^gl 


/.' 


COPYRIGHT   1905  BY  JOHN  BURROUGHS 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Bj7d 

'shea  October  jqc 


Published  October  iqos 


PREFACE 

My  reader  will  find  this  volume  quite  a  departure 
in  certain  ways  from  the  tone  and  spirit  of  my  pre- 
vious books,  especially  in  regard  to  the  subject  of 
animal  intelligence.  Heretofore  I  have  made  the 
most  of  every  gleam  of  intelligence  of  bird  or  four- 
footed  beast  that  came  under  my  observation,  often, 
I  fancy,  making  too  much  of  it,  and  giving  the  wild 
creatures  credit  for  more  "  sense "  than  they  really 
possessed.  The  nature  lover  is  always  tempted  to 
do  this  very  thing;  his  tendency  is  to  humanize  the 
wild  life  about  him,  and  to  read  his  own  traits  and 
moods  into  whatever  he  looks  upon.  I  have  never 
consciously  done  this  myself,  at  least  to  the  extent 
of  willfully  misleading  my  reader.  But  some  of  our 
later  nature  writers  have  been  guilty  of  this  fault, 
and  have  so  grossly  exaggerated  and  misrepresented 
the  every-day  wild  Hfe  of  our  fields  and  woods  that 
their  example  has  caused  a  strong  reaction  to  take 
place  in  my  own  mind,  and  has  led  me  to  set  about 
examining  the  whole  subject  of  animal  Hfe  and 
instinct  in  a  way  I  have  never  done  before. 

In  March,  1903,  I  contributed  to  "The  Atlantic 
Monthly  "  a  paper  called  "  Real  and  Sham  Natural 
History,"  which  was  as  vigorous  a  protest  as  I  could 

V 


PREFACE 

make  against  the  growing  tendency  to  humanize 
the  lower  animals.  The  paper  was  widely  read  and 
discussed,  and  bore  fruit  in  many  ways,  much  of 
it  good  and  wholesome  fruit,  but  a  little  of  it  bitter 
and  acrid.  For  obvious  reasons  that  paper  is  not 
included  in  this  collection.  But  I  have  given  all  the 
essays  that  were  the  outcome  of  the  currents  of 
thought  and  inquiry  that  it  set  going  in  my  mind, 
and  I  have  given  them  nearly  in  the  order  in  which 
they  were  written,  so  that  the  reader  may  see  the 
growth  of  my  own  mind  and  opinions  in  relation  to 
the  subject.  I  confess  I  have  not  been  fully  able  to 
persuade  myself  that  the  lower  animals  ever  show 
anything  more  than  a  faint  gleam  of  what  we  call 
thought  and  reflection,  —  the  power  to  evolve  ideas 
from  sense  impressions,  —  except  feebly  in  the  case 
of  the  dog  and  the  apes,  and  possibly  the  elephant. 
Nearly  all  the  animal  behavior  that  the  credulous 
pubKc  looks  upon  as  the  outcome  of  reason  is  simply 
the  result  of  the  adaptiveness  and  plasticity  of 
instinct.  The  animal  has  impulses  and  impressions 
where  we  have  ideas  and  concepts.  Of  our  faculties 
I  concede  to  them  perception,  sense  memory,  and 
association  of  memories,  and  little  else.  Without 
these  it  would  be  impossible  for  their  lives  to  go  on. 
I  am  aware  that  there  is  much  repetition  in  this 
volume,  and  that  the  names  of  several  of  the  separate 
chapters  differ  much  more  than  do  the  subjects 
discussed  in  them. 

vi 


PREFACE 

When  I  was  a  boy  on  the  farm,  we  used  to  thrash 
our  grain  with  the  hand-flail.  Our  custom  was  to 
thrash  a  flooring  of  sheaves  on  one  side,  then  turn 
the  sheaves  over  and  thrash  them  on  the  other, 
then  unbind  them  and  thrash  the  loosened  straw 
again,  and  then  finish  by  turning  the  whole  over 
and  thrashing  it  once  more.  I  suspect  my  reader 
will  feel  that  I  have  followed  the  same  method  in 
many  of  these  papers.  I  have  thrashed  the  same 
straw  several  times,  but  I  have  turned  it  each  time, 
and  I  trust  have  been  rewarded  by  a  few  additional 
grains  of  truth. 

Let  me  hope  that  the  result  of  the  discussion  or 
thrashing  will  not  be  to  make  the  reader  love  the 
animals  less,  but  rather  to  love  the  truth  more. 

June,  1905. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    Ways  of  Nature 1 

n.    Bird-Songs 29 

III.  Nature  with  Closed  Doors      .        .        »  47 

IV.  The  Wit  of  a  Duck        ....  53 
V.    Factors  in  Animal  Life    .        .        .        .69 

VI.    Animal  Communication           ...  87 

VII.    Devious  Paths 109 

VIII.    What  do  Animals  Know?      .        .        .  123 

IX.    Do  Animals  Think  and  Reflect?    .        .  151 

X.    A  Pinch  of  Salt 173 

XI.    The  Literary  Treatment  of  Nature      .  191 

XII.    A  Beaver's  Reason          ....  209 

Xin.    Reading  the  Book  of  Nature  .        .        .  231 
XIV.    Gathered  by  the  Way 

I.    the  training  of  wild  animals  .        .  239 

II.   AN  astonished  PORCUPINE  .     .     .  242 

ni.    birds  and  strings          ....  246 

IV.  mimicry 248 

V.  the  colors  of  fruits    ....  251 
VI.     instinct 254 

vn.    the  robin 261 

vni.    the  crow 265 

Index ^        .  273 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

I  WAS  much  amused  lately  by  a  half-dozen  or 
more  letters  that  camie  to  me  from  some  Califor- 
nian  schoolchildren,  who  wrote  to  ask  if  I  would 
please  tell  them  whether  or  not  birds  have  sense. 
One  Httle  girl  said :  "  I  would  be  pleased  if  you  would 
write  and  tell  me  if  birds  have  sense.  I  wanted  to 
see  if  I  could  n't  be  the  first  one  to  know."  I  felt 
obliged  to  reply  to  the  children  that  we  ourselves 
do  not  have  sense  enough  to  know  just  how  much 
sense  the  birds  and  other  wild  creatures  do  have, 
and  that  they  do  appear  to  have  some,  though  their 
actions  are  probably  the  result  of  what  we  call  in- 
stinct, or  natural  prompting,  like  that  of  the  bean- 
stalk when  it  cHmbs  the  pole.  Yet  a  bean-stalk  will 
sometimes  show  a  kind  of  perversity  or  depravity 
that  looks  hke  the  result  of  deliberate  choice.  Each 
season,  among  my  dozen  or  more  hills  of  pole-beans, 
there  are  usually  two  or  three  low-minded  plants 
that  will  not  chmb  the  poles,  but  go  groveling  upon 
the  ground,  wandering  off  among  the  potato- vines  or 
cucumbers,  departing  utterly  from  the  traditions 
of  their  race,  becoming  shiftless  and  vagrant.  When 

1 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

I  lift  them  up  and  wind  them  around  the  poles  and 
tie  them  with  a  wisp  of  grass,  they  rarely  stay.  In 
some  way  they  seem  to  get  a  wrong  start  in  life,  or 
else  are  degenerates  from  the  first.  I  have  never 
known  anything  like  this  among  the  wild  creatures, 
though  it  happens  often  enough  among  our  own 
kind.  The  trouble  with  the  bean  is  doubtless  this : 
the  Lima  bean  is  of  South  American  origin,  and  in 
the  Southern  Hemisphere,  beans,  it  seems,  go  the 
other  way  around  the  pole;  that  is,  from  right  to 
left.  When  transferred  north  of  the  equator,  it  takes 
them  some  time  to  learn  the  new  way,  or  from  left  to 
right,  and  a  few  of  them  are  always  backshding, 
or  departing  from  the  new  way  and  vaguely  seeking 
the  old;  and  not  finding  this,  they  become  vaga- 
bonds. 

How  much  or  how  little  sense  or  judgment  our 
wild  neighbors  have  is  hard  to  determine.  The 
crows  and  other  birds  that  carry  shell-fish  high  in 
the  air  and  then  let  them  drop  upon  the  rocks  to 
break  the  shell  show  something  very  much  like 
reason,  or  a  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  though  it  is  probably  an  unthinking  habit 
formed  in  their  ancestors  under  the  pressure  of 
hunger.  Froude  tells  of  some  species  of  bird  that 
he  saw  in  South  Africa  flying  amid  the  swarm  of 
migrating  locusts  and  clipping  off  the  wings  of  the 
insects  so  that  they  would  drop  to  the  earth,  where 
the  birds  could  devour  them  at  their  leisure.    Our 

2 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

squirrels  will  cut  off  the  chestnut  burs  before  they 
have  opened,  allowing  them  to  fall  to  the  ground, 
where,  as  they  seem  to  know,  the  burs  soon  dry 
open.  Feed  a  caged  coon  soiled  food,  —  a  piece  of 
bread  or  meat  rolled  on  the  ground,  —  and  before 
he  eats  it  he  will  put  it  in  his  dish  of  water  and  wash 
it  off.  The  author  of  "Wild  Life  Near  Home" 
says  that  muskrats  "will  wash  what  they  eat, 
whether  washing  is  needed  or  not."  If  the  coon 
washes  his  food  only  when  it  needs  washing,  and  not 
in  every  individual  instance,  then  the  proceeding 
looks  Hke  an  act  of  judgment  ;  the  same  with  the 
muskrat.  But  if  they  always  wash  their  food,  whether 
soiled  or  not,  the  act  looks  more  hke  instinct  or  an 
inherited  habit,  the  origin  of  which  is  obscure. 

Birds  and  animals  probably  think  without  know- 
ing that  they  think;  that  is,  they  have  not  self-con- 
sciousness. Only  man  seems  to  be  endowed  with 
this  faculty;  he  alone  develops  disinterested  intel- 
ligence, —  intelligence  that  is  not  primarily  con- 
cerned with  his  own  safety  and  well-being,  but  that 
looks  abroad  upon  things.  The  wit  of  the  lower 
animals  seems  all  to  have  been  developed  by  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  it  rarely  gets  beyond 
the  prudential  stage.  The  sharper  the  struggle, 
the  sharper  the  wit.  Our  porcupine,  for  instance, 
is  probably  the  most  stupid  of  animals  and  has 
the  least  speed  ;  it  has  little  use  for  either  wit  or 
celerity  of  movement.     It  carries  a  death-deaUng 

3 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

armor  to  protect  it  from  its  enemies,  and  it  can 
climb  the  nearest  hemlock  tree  and  hve  on  the  bark 
all  winter.  The  skunk,  too,  pays  for  its  terrible 
weapon  by  dull  wits.  But  think  of  the  wit  of  the 
much-hunted  fox,  the  much-hunted  otter,  the  much- 
sought  beaver!  Even  the  grouse,  when  often  fired 
at,  learns,  when  it  is  started  in  the  open,  to  fly  with 
a  cockscrew  motion  to  avoid  the  shot. 

Fear,  love,  and  hunger  were  the  agents  that  de- 
veloped the  wits  of  the  lower  animals,  as  they  were, 
of  course,  the  prime  factors  in  developing  the  intel- 
ligence of  man.  But  man  has  gone  on,  while  the 
animals  have  stopped  at  these  fundamental  wants, 
—  the  need  of  safety,  of  offspring,  of  food. 

Probably  in  a  state  of  wild  nature  birds  never 
make  mistakes,  but  where  they  come  in  contact  mth 
our  civilization  and  are  confronted  by  new  con- 
ditions, they  very  naturally  make  mistakes.  For 
instance,  their  cunning  in  nest-building  sometimes 
deserts  them.  The  art  of  the  bird  is  to  conceal  its 
nest  both  as  to  position  and  as  to  material,  but  now 
and  then  it  is  betrayed  into  weaving  into  its  struc- 
ture showy  and  bizarre  bits  of  this  or  that,  which 
give  its  secret  away,  and  which  seem  to  violate  all  the 
traditions  of  its  kind.  I  have  the  picture  of  a  robin's 
nest  before  me,  upon  the  outside  of  which  are  stuck 
a  muslin  flower,  a  leaf  from  a  small  calendar,  and  a 
photograph  of  a  local  celebrity.  A  more  incongruous 
use  of  material  in  bird  architecture  it  would  be 

4 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

hard  to  find.  I  have  been  told  of  another  robin's 
nest  upon  the  outside  of  which  the  bird  had  fastened 
a  wooden  label  from  a  near-by  flower-bed,  marked 
"  Wake  Robin."  Still  another  nest  I  have  seen  built 
upon  a  large,  showy  foundation  of  the  paper-Hke 
flowers  of  antennaria,  or  everlasting.  The  wood 
thrush  frequently  weaves  a  fragment  of  newspaper 
or  a  white  rag  into  the  foundation  of  its  nest.  "  Evil 
communications  corrupt  good  manners."  The 
newspaper  and  the  rag-bag  unsettle  the  wits  of  the 
birds.  The  phcebe-bird  is  capable  of  this  kind  of 
mistake  or  indiscretion.  All  the  past  generations  of 
her  tribe  have  built  upon  natural  and,  therefore, 
neutral  sites,  usually  under  shelving  and  overhang- 
ing rocks,  and  the  art  of  adapting  the  nest  to  its 
surroundings,  blending  it  with  them,  has  been 
highly  developed.  But  phoebe  now  frequently 
builds  under  our  sheds  and  porches,  where,  so  far 
as  concealment  is  concerned,  a  change  of  material, 
say  from  moss  to  dry  grass  or  shreds  of  bark,  would 
be  an  advantage  to  her  ;  but  she  departs  not  a 'bit 
from  the  family  traditions  ;  she  uses  the  same 
woodsy  mosses,  which  in  some  cases,  especially 
when  the  nest  is  placed  upon  newly  sawed  timber, 
make  her  secret  an  open  one  to  all  eyes. 

It  does  indeed  often  look  as  if  the  birds  had  very 
little  sense.  Think  of  a  bluebird,  or  an  oriole,  or  a 
robin,  or  a  jay,  fighting  for  hours  at  a  time  its  own 
image  as  reflected  in  a  pane  of  glass ;  quite  exhaust- 

5 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

ing  itself  in  its  fury  to  demolish  its  supposed  rival! 
Yet  I  have  often  witnessed  this  Httle  comedy.  It  is 
another  instance  of  how  the  arts  of  our  civilization 
corrupt  and  confuse  the  birds.  It  may  be  that  in  the 
course  of  many  generations  the  knowledge  of  glass 
will  get  into  their  blood,  and  they  will  cease  to  be 
fooled  by  it,  as  they  may  also  in  time  learn  what  a 
poor  foundation  the  newspaper  is  to  build  upon. 
The  ant  or  the  bee  could  not  be  fooled  by  the  glass 
in  that  way  for  a  moment. 

Have  the  birds  and  our  other  wild  neighbors 
sense,  as  distinguished  from  instinct  ?  Is  a  change 
of  habits  to  meet  new  conditions,  or  the  taking 
advantage  of  accidental  circumstances,  an  evidence 
of  sense  ?  How  many  birds  appear  to  have  taken 
advantage  of  the  protection  afforded  by  man  in 
building  their  nests!  How  many  of  them  build 
near  paths  and  along  roadsides,  to  say  nothing  of 
those  that  come  close  to  our  dwellings !  Even  the 
quail  seems  to  prefer  the  borders  of  the  highway 
to  the  open  fields.  I  have  chanced  upon  only  three 
quails'  nests,  and  these  were  all  by  the  roadside. 
One  season  a  scarlet  tanager  that  had  failed  with 
her  first  nest  in  the  woods  came  to  try  again  in  a 
Uttle  cherry  tree  that  stood  in  the  open,  a  few  feet 
from  my  cabin,  where  I  could  almost  touch  the  nest 
with  my  hand  as  I  passed.  But  in  my  absence  she 
again  came  to  grief,  some  marauder,  probably  a 
red  squirrel,  taking  her  eggs.    Will  her  failure  in 

6 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

this  case  cause  her  to  lose  faith  in  the  protective  in- 
fluence of  the  shadow  of  a  human  dweUing  ?  I  hope 
not.  I  have  known  the  turtle  dove  to  make  a  simi- 
lar move,  occupying  an  old  robin's  nest  near  my 
neighbor's  cottage.  The  timid  rabbit  will  sometimes 
come  up  from  the  bushy  fields  and  excavate  a  place 
for  her  nest  in  the  lawn  a  few  feet  from  the  house. 
All  such  things  look  like  acts  of  judgment,  though 
they  may  be  only  the  result  of  a  greater  fear  over- 
coming a  lesser  fear. 

It  is  in  the  preservation  of  their  lives  and  of  their 
young  that  the  wild  creatures  come  the  nearest  to 
showing  what  we  call  sense  or  reason.  The  boys  tell 
me  that  a  rabbit  that  has  been  driven  from  her  hole 
a  couple  of  times  by  a  ferret  will  not  again  run  into 
it  when  pursued.  The  tragedy  of  a  rabbit  pursued 
by  a  mink  or  a  weasel  may  often  be  read  upon  our 
winter  snows.  The  rabbit  does  not  take  to  her  hole ; 
it  would  be  fatal.  And  yet,  though  capable  of  far 
greater  speed,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  she  does  not 
escape  the  mink;  he  very  soon  pulls  her  down.  It 
would  look  as  though  a  fatal  paralysis,  the  paralysis 
of  utter  fear,  fell  upon  the  poor  creature  as  soon 
as  she  found  herself  hunted  by  this  subtle,  blood- 
thirsty enemy.  I  have  seen  upon  the  snow  where  her 
jumps  had  become  shorter  and  shorter,  with  tufts 
of  fur  marking  each  stride,  till  the  bloodstains, 
and  then  her  half-devoured  body,  told  the  whole 
tragic  story. 

7 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

There  is  probably  nothing  in  human  experience, 
at  this  age  of  the  world,  that  is  like  the  helpless  terror 
that  seizes  the  rabbits  as  it  does  other  of  our  lesser 
wild  creatures,  when  pursued  by  any  of  the  weasel 
tribe.  They  seem  instantly  to  be  under  some  fatal 
spell  which  binds  their  feet  and  destroys  their  will 
power.  It  would  seem  as  if  a  certain  phase  of  nature 
from  which  we  get  our  notions  of  fate  and  cruelty 
had  taken  form  in  the  weasel. 

The  rabbit,  when  pursued  by  the  fox  or  by  the 
dog,  quickly  takes  to  hole.  Hence,  perhaps,  the  wit 
of  the  fox  that  a  hunter  told  me  about.  The  story  was 
all  written  upon  the  snow.  A  mink  was  hunting  a 
rabbit,  and  the  fox,  happening  along,  evidently  took 
in  the  situation  at  a  glance.  He  secreted  himself 
behind  a  tree  or  a  rock,  and,  as  the  "babbit  came 
along,  swept  her  from  her  course  like  a  charge  of 
shot  fired  at  close  range,  hurling  her  several  feet  over 
the  snow,  and  then  seizing  her  and  carrying  her  to 
his  den  up  the  mountain-side. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  long  our 
chimney  swifts  saw  the  open  chimney-stacks  of  the 
early  settlers  beneath  them  before  they  abandoned 
the  hollow  trees  in  the  woods  and  entered  the  chim- 
neys for  nesting  and  roosting  purposes.  Was  the  act 
an  act  of  judgment,  or  simply  an  unreasoning  im- 
pulse, like  so  much  else  in  the  lives  of  the  wild  crea- 
tures ? 

In  the  choice  of  nesting-ipaaterial  the  swift  shows 

8 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

no  change  of  habit.  She  still  snips  off  the  small  dry 
twigs  from  the  tree-tops  and  glues  them  together,  and 
to  the  side  of  the  chimney,  with  her  own  glue.  The 
soot  is  a  new  obstacle  in  her  way,  that  she  does  not 
yet  seem  to  have  learned  to  overcome,  as  the  rains 
often  loosen  it  and  cause  her  nest  to  fall  to  the  bot- 
tom. She  has  a  pretty  way  of  trying  to  frighten  you 
off  when  your  head  suddenly  darkens  the  opening 
above  her.  At  such  times  she  leaves  the  nest  and 
clings  to  the  side  of  the  chimney  near  it.  Then, 
slowly  raising  her  wings,  she  suddenly  springs  out 
from  the  wall  and  back  again,  making  as  loud  a 
drumming  with  them  in  the  passage  as  she  is  capa- 
ble of.  If  this  does  not  frighten  you  away,  she  re- 
peats it  three  or  four  times.  If  your  face  still  hovers 
above  her,  she  remains  quiet  and  watches  you. 

What  a  creature  of  the  air  this  bird  is,  never 
touching  the  ground,  so  far  as  I  know,  and  never 
tasting  earthly  food !  The  swallow  does  perch  now 
and  then  and  descend  to  the  ground  for  nesting- 
material;  but  the  swift,  I  have  reason  to  believe, 
even  outrides  the  summer  storms,  facing  them  on 
steady  wing,  high  in  air.  The  twigs  for  her  nest  she 
gathers  on  the  wing,  sweeping  along  like  children  on 
a  "  merry-go-round  "  who  try  to  seize  a  ring,  or  to  do 
some  other  feat,  as  they  pass  a  given  point.  If  the 
swift  misses  the  twig,  or  it  fails  to  yield  to  her  the 
first  time,  she  tries  again  and  again,  each  time  mak- 
ing a  wider  circuit,  as  if  to  tame  and  train  her  steed 

9 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

a  little  and  bring  him  up  more  squarely  to  the  mark 
next  time. 

The  swift  is  a  stiff  flyer:  there  appear  to  be  no 
joints  in  her  wings;  she  suggests  something  made  of 
wires  or  of  steel.  Yet  the  air  of  frolic  and  of  super- 
abundance of  wing-power  is  more  marked  with  her 
than  with  any  other  of  our  birds.  Her  feeding  and 
twig-gathering  seem  like  asides  in  a  life  of  endless 
play.  Several  times  both  in  spring  and  fall  I  have 
seen  swifts  gather  in  immense  numbers  toward  night- 
fall, to  take  refuge  in  large  unused  chimney-stacks. 
On  such  occasions  they  seem  to  be  coming  together 
for  some  aerial  festival  or  grand  celebration;  and,  as 
if  bent  upon  a  final  effort  to  work  off  a  part  of  their 
superabundant  wing-power  before  settling  down  for 
the  night,  they  circle  and  circle  high  above  the  chim- 
ney-top, a  great  cloud  of  them,  drifting  this  way  and 
that,  all  in  high  spirits  and  chippering  as  they  fly. 
Their  numbers  constantly  increase  as  other  members 
of  the  clan  come  dashing  in  from  all  points  of  the 
compass.  Swifts  seem  to  materialize  out  of  empty 
air  on  all  sides  of  the  chippering,  whirling  ring,  as 
an  hour  or  more  this  assembling  of  the  clan  and  this 
flight  festival  go  on.  The  birds  must  gather  in  from 
whole  counties,  or  from  half  a  State.  They  have 
been  on  the  wing  all  day,  and  yet  now  they  seem  as 
tireless  as  the  wind,  and  as  if  unable  to  curb  their 
powers. 

One  fall  they  gathered  in  this  way  and  took  refuge 

10 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

for  the  night  in  a  large  chimney-stack  in  a  city  near 
me,  for  more  than  a  month  and  a  half.  Several  times 
I  went  to  town  to  witness  the  spectacle,  and  a  spec- 
tacle it  was :  ten  thousand  of  them,  I  should  think, 
filHng  the  air  above  a  whole  square  like  a  whirling 
swarm  of  huge  black  bees,  but  saluting  the  ear  with 
a  multitudinous  chippering,  instead  of  a  humming. 
People  gathered  upon  the  sidewalks  to  see  them.  It 
was  a  rare  circus  performance,  free  to  all.  After  a 
great  many  feints  and  playful  approaches,  the  whirl- 
ing ring  of  birds  would  suddenly  grow  denser  above 
the  chimney  ;  then  a  stream  of  them,  as  if  drawn 
down  by  some  power  of  suction,  would  pour  into  the 
opening.  For  only  a  few  seconds  would  this  down- 
ward rush  continue;  then,  as  if  the  spirit  of  frolic 
had  again  got  the  upper  hand  of  them,  the  ring 
would  rise,  and  the  chippering  and  circling  go  on. 
In  a  minute  or  two  the  same  manoeuvre  would  be 
repeated,  the  chimney,  as  it  were,  taking  its  swal- 
lows at  intervals  to  prevent  choking.  It  usually  took 
a  half-hour  or  more  for  the  birds  all  to  disappear 
down  its  capacious  throat.  There  was  always  an  air 
of  timidity  and  irresolution  about  their  approach 
to  the  chimney,  just  as  there  always  is  about  their 
approach  to  the  dead  tree-top  from  which  they 
procure  their  twigs  for  nest-building.  Often  did  I 
see  birds  hesitate  above  the  opening  and  then  pass 
on,  apparently  as  though  they  had  not  struck  it  at 
just  the  right  angle.  On  one  occasion  a  solitary  bird 

11 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

was  left  flying,  and  it  took  three  or  four  trials  either 
to  make  up  its  mind  or  to  catch  the  trick  of  the 
descent.  On  dark  or  threatening  or  stormy  days  the 
birds  would  begin  to  assemble  by  mid-afternoon, 
and  by  four  or  five  o'clock  were  all  in  their  lodgings. 
The  chimney  is  a  capacious  one,  forty  or  fifty  feet 
high  and  nearly  three  feet  square,  yet  it  did  not  seem 
adequate  to  afford  breathing-space  for  so  many 
birds.  I  was  curious  to  know  how  they  disposed 
themselves  inside.  At  the  bottom  was  a  small  open- 
ing. Holding  my  ear  to  it,  I  could  hear  a  continuous 
chippering  and  humming,  as  if  the  birds  were  still 
all  in  motion,  like  an  agitated  beehive.  At  nine 
o'clock  this  multitudinous  sound  of  wings  and  voices 
was  still  going  on,  and  doubtless  it  was  kept  up  all 
night.  What  was  the  meaning  of  it  ?  Was  the  press 
of  birds  so  great  that  they  needed  to  keep  their  wings 
moving  to  ventilate  the  shaft,  as  do  certain  of  the 
bees  in  a  crowded  hive  ?  Or  were  these  restless 
spirits  unable  to  fold  their  wings  even  in  sleep  ?  I 
was  very  curious  to  get  a  peep  inside  that  chimney 
when  the  swifts  were  in  it.  So  one  afternoon  this 
opportunity  was  afforded  me  by  the  removal  of  the 
large  smoke-pipe  of  the  old  steam-boiler.  This  left 
an  opening  into  which  I  could  thrust  my  head  and 
shoulders.  The  sound  of  wings  and  voices  filled 
the  hollow  shaft.  On  looking  up,  I  saw  the  sides 
of  the  chimney  for  about  half  its  length  paved  with 
the  restless  birds ;  they  sat  so  close  together  that  their 

12 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

bodies  touched.  Moreover,  a  large  number  of  them 
were  constantly  on  the  wing,  showing  against  the 
sky  light  as  if  they  were  leaving  the  chimney.  But 
they  did  not  leave  it.  They  rose  up  a  few  feet  and 
then  resumed  their  positions  upon  the  sides,  and  it 
was  this  movement  that  caused  the  humming  sound. 
All  the  while  the  droppings  of  the  birds  came  down 
Hke  a  summer  shower.  At  the  bottom  of  the  shaft 
was  a  mine  of  guano  three  or  four  feet  deep,  with  a 
dead  swift  here  and  there  upon  it.  Probably  one  or 
more  birds  out  of  such  a  multitude  died  every  night. 
I  had  fancied  there  would  be  many  more.  It  was  a 
long  time  before  it  dawned  upon  me  what  this  unin- 
terrupted flight  within  the  chimney  meant.  Finally 
I  saw  that  it  was  a  sanitary  measure :  only  thus  could 
the  birds  keep  from  soiling  each  other  with  their 
droppings.  Birds  digest  very  rapidly,  and  had  they 
all  continued  to  cling  to  the  sides  of  the  wall,  they 
would  have  been  in  a  sad  predicament  before  morn- 
ing. Like  other  acts  of  cleanliness  on  the  part  of 
birds,  this  was  doubtless  the  prompting  of  instinct 
and  not  of  judgment.  It  was  Nature  looking  out  for 
her  own. 

In  view,  then,  of  the  doubtful  sense  or  intelligence 
of  the  wild  creatures,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  new 
school  of  nature  writers  or  natural  history  roman- 
cers that  has  lately  arisen,  and  that  reads  into  the 
birds  and  animals  almost  the  entire  human  psycho- 
logy ?  This,  surely :  so  far  as  these  writers  awaken  an 

13 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

interest  in  the  wild  denizens  of  the  field  and  wood, 
and  foster  a  genuine  love  of  them  in  the  hearts  of 
the  young  people,  so  far  is  their  influence  good ;  but 
so  far  as  they  pervert  natural  history  and  give  false 
impressions  of  the  intelligence  of  our  animals,  cater- 
ing to  a  taste  that  prefers  the  fanciful  to  the  true  and 
the  real,  is  their  influence  bad.  Of  course  the  great 
army  of  readers  prefer  this  sugar-coated  natural 
history  to  the  real  thing,  but  the  danger  always  is 
that  an  indulgence  of  this  taste  will  take  away  a  hk- 
ing  for  the  real  thing,  or  prevent  its  development. 
The  knowing  ones,  those  who  can  take  these  pretty 
tales  with  the  pinch  of  salt  of  real  knowledge,  are 
not  many;  the  great  majority  are  simply  entertained 
while  they  are  being  humbugged.  There  may  be  no 
very  serious  objection  to  the  popular  love  of  sweets 
being  catered  to  in  this  field  by  serving  up  the  fife- 
history  of  our  animals  in  a  story,  all  the  missing  links 
supplied,  and  all  their  motives  and  acts  humanized, 
provided  it  is  not  done  covertly  and  under  the  guise 
of  a  real  history.  We  are  never  at  a  loss  how  to  take 
Kipling  in  his  "Jungle  Book;"  we  are  pretty  sure 
that  this  is  fact  dressed  up  as  fiction,  and  that  much 
of  the  real  life  of  the  jungle  is  in  these  stories.  I 
remember  reading  his  story  of  "The  White  Seal" 
shortly  after  I  had  visited  the  Seal  Islands  in  Bering 
Sea,  and  I  could  not  detect  in  the  story  one  departure 
from  the  facts  of  the  life-history  of  the  seal,  so  far  as 
it  is  known.    Kipling  takes  no  covert  liberties  with 

14 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

natural  history,  any  more  than  he  does  with  the  facts 
of  human  history  in  his  novels. 

Unadulterated,  unsweetened  observations  are 
what  the  real  nature-lover  craves.  No  man  can 
invent  incidents  and  traits  as  interesting  as  the 
reality.  Then,  to  know  that  a  thing  is  true  gives  it 
such  a  savor !  The  truth  —  how  we  do  crave  the 
truth !  We  cannot  feed  our  minds  on  simulacra  any 
more  than  we  can  our  bodies.  Do  assure  us  that  the 
thing  you  tell  is  true.  If  you  must  counterfeit  the 
truth,  do  it  so  deftly  that  we  shall  never  detect  you. 
But  in  natural  liistory  there  is  no  need  to  counter- 
feit the  truth;  the  reality  always  suffices,  if  you 
have  eyes  to  see  it  and  ears  to  hear  it.  Behold  what 
Maeterlinck  makes  out  of  the  life  of  the  bee,  sim- 
ply by  getting  at  and  portraying  the  facts  —  a  true 
wonder-book,  the  enchantment  of  poetry  wedded 
to  the  authority  of  science. 

Works  on  animal  intelligence,  such  as  Romanes's, 
abound  in  incidents  that  show  in  the  animals  reason 
and  forethought  in  their  simpler  forms ;  but  in  many 
cases  the  incidents  related  in  these  works  are  not 
well  authenticated,  nor  told  by  trained  observers. 
The  observations  of  the  great  majority  of  people 
have  no  scientific  value  whatever.  Romanes  quotes 
from  some  person  who  alleges  that  he  saw  a  pair  of 
nightingales,  during  a  flood  in  the  river  near  which 
their  nest  was  placed,  pick  up  the  nest  bodily  and 
carry  it  to  a  place  of  safety.   This  is  incredible.    If 

15 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

Romanes  himself  or  Darwin  himself  said  he  saw 
this,  one  would  have  to  believe  it.  Birds  whose  nests 
have  been  plundered  sometimes  pull  the  old  nest  to 
pieces  and  use  the  material,  or  parts  of  it,  in  build- 
ing a  new  nest;  but  I  cannot  believe  that  any  pair 
of  birds  ever  picked  up  a  nest  containing  eggs  and 
carried  it  off  to  a  new  place.  How  could  they  do  it  ? 
With  one  on  each  side,  how  could  they  fly  with  the 
nest  between  them  ?  They  could  not  carry  it  with  their 
feet,  and  how  could  they  manage  it  with  their  beaks  ? 
My  neighbor  met  in  the  woods  a  black  snake  that 
had  just  swallowed  a  red  squirrel.  Now  your  ro- 
mance-naturalist may  take  such  a  fact  as  this  and 
make  as  pretty  a  story  of  it  as  he  can.  He  may 
ascribe  to  the  snake  and  his  victim  all  the  human 
emotions  he  pleases.  He  may  make  the  snake  ghde 
through  the  tree-tops  from  limb  to  limb,  and  from 
tree  to  tree,  in  pursuit  of  its  prey :  the  main  filing  is, 
the  snake  got  the  squirrel.  If  our  romancer  makes 
the  snake  fascinate  the  squirrel,  I  shall  object,  be- 
cause I  don't  believe  that  snakes  have  this  power. 
People  like  to  believe  that  they  have.  It  would  seem 
as  if  this  subtle,  gliding,  hateful  creature  ought  to 
have  some  such  mysterious  gift,  but  I  have  no  proof 
that  it  has.  Every  year  I  see  the  black  snake  robbing 
birds'-nests,  or  pursued  by  birds  whose  nests  it  has 
just  plundered,  but  I  have  yet  to  see  it  cast  its  fatal 
spell  upon  a  grown  bird.  Or,  if  our  romancer  says 
that  the  black  snake  was  drilled  in  the  art  of  squir- 

16 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

rel-catching  by  its  mother,  I  shall  know  he  is  a  pre- 
tender. 

Speaking  of  snakes  reminds  me  of  an  incident  I 
have  several  times  witnessed  in  our  woods  in  con- 
nection with  a  snake  commonly  called  the  sissing  or 
blowing  adder.  When  I  have  teased  this  snake  a  few 
moments  with  my  cane,  it  seems  to  be  seized  with  an 
epileptic  or  cataleptic  fit.  It  throws  itself  upon  its 
back,  coiled  nearly  in  the  form  of  a  figure  eight,  and 
begins  a  series  of  writhings  and  twistings  and  con- 
vulsive movements  astonishing  to  behold.  Its  mouth 
is  open  and  presently  full  of  leaf -mould,  its  eyes  are 
covered  with  the  same,  its  head  is  thrown  back,  its 
white  belly  up;  now  it  is  under  the  leaves,  now  out, 
the  body  all  the  while  being  rapidly  drawn  through 
this  figure  eight,  so  that  the  head  and  tail  are  con- 
stantly changing  place.  What  does  it  mean  ?  Is  it 
fear  ?  Is  it  a  real  fit  ?  I  do  not  know,  but  any  one  of 
our  romance-naturalists  could  tell  you  at  once.  I  can 
only  suggest  that  it  may  be  a  ruse  to  baffle  its  enemy, 
the  black  snake,  when  he  would  attempt  to  crush 
it  in  his  folds,  or  to  seize  its  head  when  he  would 
swallow  it. 

I  am  reminded  of  another  mystery  connected  with 
a  snake,  or  a  snake-skin,  and  a  bird.  Why  does  our 
great  crested  flycatcher  weave  a  snake-skin  into  its 
nest,  or,  in  lieu  of  that,  something  that  suggests  a 
snake-skin,  such  as  an  onion-skin,  or  fish-scales,  or 
a  bit  of  oiled  paper  ?  It  is  thought  by  some  persons 

17 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

that  it  uses  the  snake-skin  as  a  kind  of  scarecrow,  to 
frighten  away  its  natural  enemies.    But  think  what 
this  purpose  in  the  use  of  it  would  imply.   It  would 
imply  that  the  bird  knew  that  there  were  among  its 
enemies  creatures  that  were  afraid  of  snakes  —  so 
afraid  of  them  that  one  of  their  faded  and  cast-off 
skins  would  keep  these  enemies  away.    How  could 
the  bird  obtain  this  knowledge  ?    It  is  not  afraid  of 
the  skin  itself;  why  should  it  infer  that  squirrels, 
for  instance,  are  ?    I  am  convinced  there  is  nothing 
in  this  notion.    In  all  the  nests  that  have  come 
under  my  observation,  the  snake-skin  was  in  faded 
fragments  woven  into  the  texture  of  the  nest,  and  one 
would  not  be  aware  of  its  presence  unless  he  pulled 
the  nest  to  pieces.    True,  Mr.  Frank  BoUes  reports 
finding  a  nest  of  this  bird  with  a  whole  snake-skin 
coiled  around  a  single  egg;  but  it  was  the  skin  of 
a  small  garter-snake,  six  or  seven  inches  long,  and 
could  not  therefore  have  inspired  much  terror  in 
the  heart  of  the  bird's  natural  enemies.     Dallas 
Lore  Sharp,  author  of  that  dehghtful  book,  "  Wild 
Life  Near  Home,"  tells  me  he  has  seen  a  whole  skin 
danghng  nearly  its  entire  length  from  the  hole  that 
contained  the  nest,  just  as  he  has  seen  strings  hang- 
ing from  the  nest  of  the  kingbird.    The  bird  was 
too  hurried  or  too  careless  to  pull  in  the  skin.    Mr. 
Sharp  adds  that  he  cannot  "  give  the  bird  credit  for 
appreciating  the  attitude  of  the  rest  of  the  world 
toward  snakes,  and  making  use  of  the  fear."  More- 

18 


wxys  of  nature 

over,  a  cast-off  snake-skin  looks  very  little  like  a 
snake.  It  is  thin,  shrunken,  faded,  papery,  and  there 
is  no  terror  in  it.  Then,  too,  it  is  dark  in  the  cavity 
of  the  nest,  consequently  the  skin  could  not  serve 
as  a  scarecrow  in  any  case.  Hence,  whatever  its  pur- 
pose may  be,  it  surely  is  not  that.  It  looks  like  a  mere 
fancy  or  whim  of  the  bird.  There  is  that  in  its  voice 
and  ways  that  suggests  something  a  little  uncanny. 
Its  call  is  more  like  the  call  of  the  toad  than  that  of 
a  bird.  If  the  toad  did  not  always  swallow  its  own 
cast-off  skin,  the  bird  would  probably  use  that  too. 

At  the  best  we  can  only  guess  at  the  motives  of  the 
birds  and  beasts.  As  I  have  elsewhere  said,  they 
nearly  all  have  reference  in  some  way  to  the  self- 
preservation  of  these  creatures.  But  how  the  bits  of 
an  old  snake-skin  in  a  bird's  nest  can  contribute 
specially  to  this  end,  I  cannot  see. 

Nature  is  not  always  consistent ;  she  does  not 
always  choose  the  best  means  to  a  given  end.  For 
instance,  all  the  wrens  except  our  house  wren  seem 
to  use  about  the  best  material  at  hand  for  their  nests. 
What  can  be  more  unsuitable,  untractable,  for  a  nest 
in  a  hole  or  cavity  than  the  twigs  the  house  wren 
uses  ?  Dry  grasses  or  bits  of  soft  bark  would  bend 
and  adapt  themselves  easily  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
case;  but  stiff,  unyielding  twigs!  What  a  contrast 
to  the  suitableness  of  the  material  the  hummingbird 
uses  —  the  down  of  some  plant,  which  seems  to  have 
a  poetic  fitness! 

19 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

Yesterday  in  my  walk  I  saw  where  a  red  squirrel 
had  stripped  the  soft  outer  bark  off  a  group  of  red 
cedars  to  build  its  winter's  nest  with.  This  also 
seemed  fit,  —  fit  that  such  a  creature  of  the  trees 
should  not  go  to  the  ground  for  its  nest-material,  and 
should  choose  something  soft  and  pliable.  Among 
the  birches,  it  probably  gathers  the  fine  curHng 
shreds  of  the  birch  bark. 

Beside  my  path  in  the  woods  a  downy  woodpecker, 
late  one  fall,  drilled  a  hole  in  the  top  of  a  small  dead 
black  birch  for  his  winter  quarters.  My  attention 
was  first  called  to  his  doings  by  the  white  chips  upon 
the  ground.  Every  day  as  I  passed  I  would  rap  upon 
his  tree,  and  if  he  was  in  he  would  appear  at  his  door 
and  ask  plainly  enough  what  I  wanted  now.  One 
day  when  I  rapped,  sometliing  else  appeared  at  the 
door —  I  could  not  make  out  what.  I  continued  my 
rapping,when  out  came  two  flying-squirrels.  On  the 
tree  being  given  a  vigorous  shake,  it  broke  off  at  the 
hole,  and  the  squirrels  went  sliding  down  the  air  to 
the  foot  of  a  hemlock,  up  which  they  disappeared. 
They  had  dispossessed  Downy  of  his  house,  had  car- 
ried in  some  grass  and  leaves  for  a  nest,  and  were  as 
snug  as  a  bug  in  a  rug.  Downy  drilled  another  cell 
in  a  dead  oak  farther  up  the  hill,  and,  I  hope,  passed 
the  winter  there  unmolested.  Such  incidents,  comic 
or  tragic,  as  they  chance  to  strike  us,  are  happening 
all  about  us,  if  we  have  eyes  to  see  them. 

The  next  season,  near  sundown  of  a  late  Novem- 

20 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

ber  day,  I  saw  Downy  trying  to  get  possession  of  a 
hole  not  his  own.  I  chanced  to  be  passing  under 
a  maple,  when  white  chips  upon  the  ground  again 
caused  me  to  scrutinize  the  branches  overhead.  Just 
then  I  saw  Downy  come  to  the  tree,  and,  hopping 
around  on  the  under  side  of  a  large  dry  limb,  begin 
to  make  passes  at  something  with  his  beak.  Pre- 
sently I  made  out  a  round  hole  there,  with  some- 
thing in  it  returning  Downy' s  thrusts.  The  sparring 
continued  some  moments.  Downy  would  hop  away 
a  few  feet,  then  return  to  the  attack,  each  time  to  be 
met  by  the  occupant  of  the  hole.  I  suspected  an 
English  sparrow  had  taken  possession  of  Downy's 
cell  in  his  absence  during  the  day,  but  I  was  wrong. 
Downy  flew  to  another  branch,  and  I  tossed  up  a 
stone  against  the  one  that  contained  the  hole,  when, 
with  a  sharp,  steely  note,  out  came  a  hairy  wood- 
pecker and  alighted  on  a  near-by  branch.  Downy, 
then,  had  the  "  cheek  "  to  try  to  turn  his  large  rival 
out  of  doors  —  and  it  was  Hairy' s  cell,  too ;  one  could 
see  that  by  the  size  of  the  entrance.  Thus  loosely 
does  the  rule  of  meum  and  tuu7n  obtain  in  the 
woods.  There  is  no  moral  code  in  nature.  Might 
reads  right.  Man  in  communities  has  evolved  ethi- 
cal standards  of  conduct,  but  nations,  in  their  deal- 
ings with  one  another,  are  still  largely  in  a  state  of 
savage  nature,  and  seek  to  establish  the  right,  as 
dogs  do,  by  the  appeal  to  battle. 

One  season  a  wood  duck  laid  her  eggs  in  a  cavity 

21 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

in  the  top  of  a  tall  yellow  birch  near  the  spring  that 
supplies  my  cabin  with  water.      A  bold  climber 
"shinned"  up  the  fifty  or  sixty  feet  of  rough  tree- 
trunk  and  looked  in  upon  the  eleven  eggs.    They 
were  beyond  the  reach  of  his  arm,  in  a  well-hke 
cavity  over  three  feet  deep.   How  would  the  mother 
duck  get  her  young  up  out  of  that  well  and  down 
to  the  ground  ?    We  watched,  hoping  to  see  her  in 
the  act.    But  we  did  not.  She  may  have  done  it  at 
night  or  very  early  in  the  morning.    All  we  know  is 
that  when  Amasa  one  morning  passed  that  way, 
there  sat  eleven  little  tufts  of  black  and  yellow  down 
in  the  spring,  with  the  mother  duck  near  by.   It  was 
a  pretty  sight.    The  feat  of  getting  down  from  the 
tree-top  cradle  had  been  safely  effected,  probably  by 
the  young  clambering  up  on  the  inside  walls  of  the 
cavity  and  then  tumbling  out  into  the  air  and  com- 
ing down  gently  like  huge  snowflakes.    They  are 
mostly  down,  and  why  should  they  not  fall  with- 
out any  danger  to  life  or  limb  ?    The  notion  that 
the  mother  duck  takes  the  young  one  by  one  in  her 
beak  and  carries  them  to  the  creek  is  doubtless  erro- 
neous.  Mr.  William  Brewster  once  saw  the  golden- 
eye,  whose  habits  of  nesting  are  like  those  of  the 
wood  duck,  get  its  young  from  the  nest  to  the  water 
in  this  manner:    The  mother  bird  ahghted  in  the 
water  under  the  nest,  looked  all  around  to  see  that 
the  coast  was  clear,  and  then  gave  a  peculiar  call. 
Instantly  the  young  shot  out  of  the  cavity  that  held 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

them,  as  if  the  tree  had  taken  an  emetic,  and  came 
softly  down  to  the  water  beside  their  mother.  An- 
other observer  assures  me  that  he  once  found  a 
newly  hatched  duckling  hung  by  the  neck  in  the 
fork  of  a  bush  under  a  tree  in  which  a  brood  of 
wood  ducks  had  been  hatched. 

The  ways  of  nature,  —  who  can  map  them,  or 
fathom  them,  or  interpret  them,  or  do  much  more 
than  read  a  hint  correctly  here  and  there  ?  Of  one 
thing  we  may  be  pretty  certain,  namely,  that  the  ways 
of  wild  nature  may  be  studied  in  our  human  ways, 
inasmuch  as  the  latter  are  an  evolution  from  the 
former,  till  we  come  to  the  ethical  code,  to  altruism 
and  self-sacrifice.  Here  we  seem  to  breathe  another 
air,  though  probably  this  code  differs  no  more  from 
the  animal  standards  of  conduct  than  our  physi- 
cal atmosphere  differs  from  that  of  early  geologic 
time. 

Our  moral  code  must  in  some  way  have  been 
evolved  from  our  rude  animal  instincts.  It  came 
from  within;  its  possibilities  were  all  in  nature.  If 
not,  where  were  they  ? 

I  have  seen  disinterested  acts  among  the  birds,  or 
what  looked  like  such,  as  when  one  bird  feeds  the 
young  of  another  species  when  it  hears  them  crying 
for  food.  But  that  a  bird  would  feed  a  grown  bird 
of  another  species,  or  even  of  its  own,  to  keep  it  from 
starving,  I  have  my  doubts.  I  am  quite  positive 
that  mice  will  try  to  pull  one  of  their  fellows  out  of  a 

23 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

trap,  but  what  the  motive  is,  who  shall  say  ?  Would 
the  same  mice  share  their  last  crumb  with  their  fel- 
low if  he  were  starving  ?  That,  of  course,  would  be 
a  much  nearer  approach  to  the  human  code,  and 
is  too  much  to  expect.  Bees  will  clear  their  fellows 
of  honey,  but  whether  it  be  to  help  them,  or  to  save 
the  honey,  is  a  question. 

In  my  youth  I  saw  a  parent  weasel  seize  one  of  its 
nearly  grown  young  which  I  had  wounded  and  carry 
it  across  an  open  barway,  in  spite  of  my  efforts  to 
liinder  it.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  is  a  careful  observer, 
says  he  once  wounded  a  shrike  so  that  it  fell  to  the 
ground,  but  before  he  got  to  it,  it  recovered  itself  and 
flew  with  difficulty  toward  some  near  trees,  calling 
to  its  mate  the  while ;  the  mate  came  and  seemed  to 
get  beneath  the  wounded  bird  and  buoy  it  up,  so 
aiding  it  that  it  gained  the  top  of  a  tall  tree,  where 
my  friend  left  it.  But  in  neither  instance  can  we 
call  this  helpfulness  entirely  disinterested,  or  pure 
altruism. 

Emerson  said  that  he  was  an  endless  experimenter 
with  no  past  at  his  back.  This  is  just  what  Nature  is. 
She  experiments  endlessly,  seeking  new  ways,  new 
modes,  new  forms,  and  is  ever  intent  upon  breaking 
away  from  the  past.  In  this  way,  as  Darwin  showed,  , 
she  attains  to  new  species.  She  is  blind,  she  gropes 
her  way,  she  trusts  to  luck;  all  her  successes  are 
chance  hits.  Whenever  I  look  over  my  right  shoul- 
der, as  I  sit  at  my  desk  writing  these  sentences,  I  see 

24 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

a  long  shoot  of  a  honeysuckle  that  came  in  through 
a  crack  of  my  imperfectly  closed  window  last  sum- 
mer. It  came  in  looking,  or  rather  feeling,  for  some- 
thing to  cling  to.  It  first  dropped  down  upon  a  pile 
of  books,  then  reached  off  till  it  struck  the  window- 
sill  of  another  large  window ;  along  this  it  crept,  its 
regular  leaves  standing  up  like  so  many  pairs  of 
green  ears,  looking  very  pretty.  Coming  to  the  end  of 
the  open  way  there,  it  turned  to  the  left  and  reached 
out  into  vacancy,  till  it  struck  another  window-sill 
runm'ng  at  right  angles  to  the  former;  along  this  it 
traveled  nearly  half  an  inch  a  day,  till  it  came  to  the 
end  of  that  road.  Then  it  ventured  out  into  vacant 
space  again,  and  pointed  straight  toward  me  at  my 
desk,  ten  feet  distant.  Day  by  day  it  kept  its  seat 
upon  the  window-sill,  and  stretched  out  farther  and 
farther,  almost  beckoning  me  to  give  it  a  lift  or  to 
bring  it  support.  I  could  hardly  resist  its  patient 
daily  appeal.  Late  in  October  it  had  bridged  about 
three  feet  of  the  distance  that  separated  us,  when, 
one  day,  the  moment  came  when  it  could  maintain 
itself  outright  in  the  air  no  longer,  and  it  fell  to  the 
floor.  "Poor  thing,"  I  said,  "your  faith  was  blind, 
but  it  was  real.  You  knew  there  was  a  support  some- 
where, and  you  tried  all  ways  to  find  it."  This  is 
Nature.  She  goes  around  the  circle,  she  tries  every 
direction,  sure  that  she  will  find  a  way  at  some 
point.  Animals  in  cages  behave  in  a  similar  way, 
looking  for  a  means  of  escape.    In  the  vineyard  I 

25 


WAYS   OF   NATURE 

see  the  grape-vines  reaching  out  bhndly  in  all  direc- 
tions for  some  hold  for  their  tendrils.  The  young 
arms  seize  upon  one  another  and  tighten  their  hold 
as  if  they  had  at  last  found  what  they  were  in  search 
of.  Stop  long  enough  beside  one  of  the  vines,  and 
it  will  cling  to  you  and  run  all  over  you. 

Behold  the  tumble-bug  with  her  ball  of  dung  by 
the  roadside ;  where  is  she  going  with  it  ?  She  is 
going  anywhere  and  everywhere;  she  changes  her 
direction,  like  the  vine,  whenever  she  encounters  an 
obstacle.  She  only  knows  that  somewhere  there  is  a 
depression  or  a  hole  in  which  her  ball  with  its  egg 
can  rest  secure,  and  she  keeps  on  tumbling  about 
till  she  finds  it,  or  maybe  digs  one,  or  comes  to  grief 
by  the  foot  of  some  careless  passer-by.  This,  again, 
is  Nature's  way,  randomly  and  tirelessly  seeking 
her  ends.  When  we  look  over  a  large  section  of  his- 
tory, we  see  that  it  is  man's  way,  too,  or  Nature's 
way  in  man.  His  progress  has  been  a  blind  groping, 
the  result  of  endless  experimentation,  and  all  his 
failures  and  mistakes  could  not  be  written  in  a  book. 
How  he  has  tumbled  about  with  liis  ball,  seeking 
the  right  place  for  it,  and  how  many  times  has  he 
come  to  grief!  x\ll  his  successes  have  been  lucky 
hits:  steam,  electricity,  representative  government, 
printing  —  how  long  he  groped  for  them  before  he 
found  them!  There  is  always  and  everywhere  the 
Darwinian  tendency  to  variation,  to  seek  new  forms, 
to  improve  upon  the  past ;  and  man  is  under  this 

26 


WAYS   OF   NATURE 

law,  the  same  as  is  the  rest  of  nature.  One  genera- 
tion of  men,  Hke  one  generation  of  leaves,  becomes 
the  fertilizer  of  the  next;  failures  only  enrich  the 
soil  or  make  smoother  the  way. 

There  are  so  many  conflicting  forces  and  interests, 
and  the  conditions  of  success  are  so  complex !  If  the 
seed  fall  here,  it  will  not  germinate ;  if  there,  it  will 
be  drowned  or  washed  away ;  if  yonder,  it  will  find 
too  sharp  competition.  There  are  only  a  few  places 
where  it  will  find  all  the  conditions  favorable.  Hence 
the  prodigality  of  Nature  in  seeds,  scattering  a  thou- 
sand for  one  plant  or  tree.  She  is  like  a  hunter  shoot- 
ing at  random  into  every  tree  or  bush,  hoping  to 
bring  down  his  game,  which  he  does  if  his  ammu- 
nition holds  out  long  enough;  or  like  the  British 
soldier  in  the  Boer  War,  firing  vaguely  at  an  enemy 
that  he  does  not  see.  But  Nature's  ammunition 
always  holds  out,  and  she  hits  her  mark  in  the  end. 
Her  ammunition  on  our  planet  is  the  heat  of  the 
sun.  When  this  fails,  she  will  no  longer  hit  the 
mark  or  try  to  hit  it. 

Let  there  be  a  plum  tree  anywhere  with  the 
disease  called  the  "black-knot"  upon  it,  and  pre- 
sently every  plum  tree  in  its  neighborhood  will  have 
black  knots.  Do  you  think  the  germs  from  the  first 
knot  knew  where  to  find  the  other  plum  trees  ?  No ; 
the  wind  carried  them  in  every  direction,  where  the 
plum  trees  were  not  as  well  as  where  they  were.  It 
was  a  blind  search  and  a  chance  hit.    So  with  all 

27 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

seeds  and  germs.  Nature  covers  all  the  space,  and  is 
bound  to  hit  the  mark  sooner  or  later.  The  sun  spills 
his  light  indiscriminately  into  space;  a  small  frac- 
tion of  his  rays  hit  the  earth,  and  we  are  warmed. 
Yet  to  all  intents  and  purposes  it  is  as  if  he  shone 
for  us  alone. 


II 

BIRD-SONGS 

I  SUSPECT  it  requires  a  special  gift  of  grace  to 
enable  one  to  hear  the  bird-songs;  some  new 
power  must  be  added  to  the  ear,  or  some  obstruction 
removed.  There  are  not  only  scales  upon  our  eyes 
so  that  we  do  not  see,  there  are  scales  upon  our  ears 
so  that  we  do  not  hear.  A  city  woman  who  had 
spent  much  of  her  time  in  the  country  once  asked 
a  well-known  ornithologist  to  take  her  where  she 
could  hear  the  bluebird.  "What,  never  heard  the 
bluebird ! "  said  he.  "  I  have  not,"  said  the  woman. 
"Then  you  will  never  hear  it,"  said  the  bird-lover; 
never  hear  it  with  that  inward  ear  that  gives  beauty 
and  meaning  to  the  note.  He  could  probably  have 
taken  her  in  a  few  minutes  where  she  could  have 
heard  the  call  or  warble  of  the  bluebird ;  but  it  would 
have  fallen  upon  unresponsive  ears  —  upon  ears 
that  were  not  sensitized  by  love  for  the  birds  or 
associations  with  them.  Bird-songs  are  not  music, 
properly  speaking,  but  only  suggestions  of  music. 
A  great  many  people  whose  attention  would  be 
quickly  arrested  by  the  same  volume  of  sound  made 
by  a  musical  instrument  or  by  artificial  means  never 

29 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

hear  them  at  all.  The  sound  of  a  boy's  penny 
whistle  there  in  the  grove  or  the  meadow  would 
separate  itself  more  from  the  background  of  nature, 
and  be  a  greater  challenge  to  the  ear,  than  is  the 
strain  of  the  thrush  or  the  song  of  the  sparrow. 
There  is  something  elusive,  indefinite,  neutral,  about 
bird-songs  that  makes  them  strike  obliquely,  as  it 
were,  upon  the  ear  ;  and  we  are  very  apt  to  miss 
them.  They  are  a  part  of  nature,  the  Nature  that 
Hes  about  us,  entirely  occupied  with  her  own  affairs, 
and  quite  regardless  of  our  presence.  Hence  it  is 
with  bird-songs  as  it  is  with  so  many  other  things 
in  nature  —  they  are  what  we  make  them ;  the  ear 
that  hears  them  must  be  half  creative.  I  am  always 
disturbed  when  persons  not  especially  observant 
of  birds  ask  me  to  take  them  where  they  can  hear 
a  particular  bird,  in  whose  song  they  have  become 
interested  through  a  description  in  some  book.  As 
I  Hsten  with  them,  I  feel  like  apologizing  for  the 
bird  :  it  has  a  bad  cold,  or  has  just  heard  some 
depressing  news;  it  will  not  let  itself  out.  The 
song  seems  so  casual  and  minor  when  you  make  a 
dead  set  at  it.  I  have  taken  persons  to  hear  the 
hermit  thrush,  and  I  have  fancied  that  they  were  all 
the  time  saying  to  themselves,  "  Is  that  all  ?  "  But 
should  one  hear  the  bird  in  his  walk,  when  the  mind 
is  attuned  to  simple  things  and  is  open  and  recep- 
tive, when  expectation  is  not  aroused  and  the  song 
comes  as  a  surprise  out  of  the  dusky  silence  of  the 

30    ' 


BIRD-SONGS 

woods,  then  one  feels  that  it  merits  all  the  fine  things 
that  can  be  said  of  it. 

One  of  our  popular  writers  and  lecturers  upon 
birds  told  me  this  incident:  He  had  engaged  to 
take  two  city  giris  out  for  a  walk  in  the  country,  to 
teach  them  the  names  of  the  birds  they  might  see 
and  hear.  Before  they  started,  he  read  to  them 
Henry  van  Dyke's  poem  on  the  song  sparrow, — 
one  of  our  best  bird-poems,  — telling  them  that  the 
song  sparrow  was  one  of  the  first  birds  they  were 
likely  to  hear.  As  they  proceeded  with  their  walk, 
sure  enough,  there  by  the  roadside  was  a  sparrow 
in  song.  The  bird  man  called  the  attention  of  his 
companions  to  it.  It  was  some  time  before  the  un- 
practiced  ears  of  the  girls  could  make  it  out ;  then 
one  of  them  said  (the  poem  she  had  just  heard,  I 
suppose,  still  ringing  in  her  ears),  "What!  that 
little  squeaky  thing  ? "  The  sparrow's  song  meant 
nothing  to  her  at  all,  and  how  could  she  share  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  poet?  Probably  the  warble  of 
the  robin,  or  the  call  of  the  meadowlark  or  of  the 
highhole,  if  they  chanced  to  hear  them,  meant  no 
more  to  these  girls.  If  we  have  no  associations  with 
these  sounds,  they  will  mean  very  little  to  us.  Their 
merit  as  musical  performances  is  very  slight.  It  is  as 
signs  of  joy  and  love  in  nature,  as  heralds  of  spring, 
and  as  the  spirit  of  the  woods  and  fields  made  audi- 
ble, that  they  appeal  to  us.  The  drumming  of  the 
woodpeckers  and  of  the  ruffed  grouse  give  great 

31 


WAYS  OF   NATURE 

pleasure  to  a  countryman,  though  these  sounds  have 
not  the  quality  of  real  music.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
call  of  the  migrating  geese  or  the  voice  of  any  wild 
thing  :  our  pleasure  in  them  is  entirely  apart  from 
any  considerations  of  music.  Why  does  the  wild 
flower,  as  we  chance  upon  it  in  the  woods  or  bogs, 
give  us  more  pleasure  than  the  more  elaborate 
flower  of  the  garden  or  lawn  ?  Because  it  comes  as 
a  surprise,  offers  a  greater  contrast  with  its  sur- 
roundings, and  suggests  a  spirit  in  wild  nature  that 
seems  to  take  thought  of  itself  and  to  aspire  to 
beautiful  forms. 

The  songs  of  caged  birds  are  always  disappoint- 
ing, because  such  birds  have  nothing  but  their  musi- 
cal qualities  to  recommend  them  to  us.  We  have 
separated  them  from  that  which  gives  quality  and 
meaning  to  their  songs.  One  recalls  Emerson's 
lines :  — 

"  I  thought  the  sparrow's  note  from  heaven. 
Singing  at  dawn  on  the  alder  bough; 
I  brought  him  home,  in  his  nest,  at  even; 
He  sings  the  song,  but  it  cheers  not  now. 
For  I  did  not  bring  home  the  river  and  sky;  — 
He  sang  to  my  ear,  — they  sang  to  my  eye." 

I  have  never  yet  seen  a  caged  bird  that  I  wanted,  — 
at  least,  not  on  account  of  its  song,  —  nor  a  wild 
flower  that  I  wished  to  transfer  to  my  garden.  A 
caged  skylark  will  sing  its  song  sitting  on  a  bit  of 

32 


BIRD-SONGS 

turf  in  the  bottom  of  the  cage ;  but  you  want  to  stop 
your  ears,  it  is  so  harsh  and  sibilant  and  penetrating. 
But  up  there  against  the  morning  sky,  and  above  the 
wide  expanse  of  fields,  what  delight  we  have  in  it! 
It  is  not  the  concord  of  sweet  sounds :  it  is  the  soar- 
ing spirit  of  gladness  and  ecstasy  raining  down  upon 
us  from  "  heaven's  gate." 

Then,  if  to  the  time  and  the  place  one  could  only 
add  the  association,  or  hear  the  bird  through  the 
vista  of  the  years,  the  song  touched  with  the  magic 
of  youthful  memories !  One  season  a  friend  in  Eng- 
land sent  me  a  score  of  skylarks  in  a  cage.  I  gave 
them  their  liberty  in  a  field  near  my  place.  They 
drifted  away,  and  I  never  heard  them  or  saw  them 
again.  But  one  Sunday  a  Scotchman  from  a  neigh- 
boring city  called  upon  me,  and  declared  with  visible 
excitement  that  on  his  way  along  the  road  he  had 
heard  a  skylark.  He  was  not  dreaming;  he  knew  it 
was  a  skylark,  though  he  had  not  heard  one  since 
he  had  left  the  banks  of  the  Doon,  a  quarter  of  a 
century  or  more  before.  What  pleasure  it  gave  him ! 
How  much  more  the  song  meant  to  him  than  it 
would  have  meant  to  me !  For  the  moment  he  was 
on  his  native  heath  again.  Then  I  told  him  about 
the  larks  I  had  liberated,  and  he  seemed  to  enjoy  it 
all  over  again  with  renewed  appreciation. 

Many  years  ago  some  skylarks  were  liberated  on 
Long  Island,  and  they  became  established  there,  and 
may  now  occasionally  be  heard  in  certain  localities. 

33 


WAYS   OF  NATURE 

One  summer  day  a  friend  of  mine  was  out  there  ob- 
serving them ;  a  lark  was  soaring  and  singing  in  the 
sky  above  him.  An  old  Irishman  came  along,  and 
suddenly  stopped  as  if  transfixed  to  the  spot ;  a  look 
of  mingled  delight  and  incredulity  came  into  his 
face.  Was  he  indeed  hearing  the  bird  of  his  youth  ? 
He  took  off  his  hat,  turned  his  face  skyward,  and 
with  moving  lips  and  streaming  eyes  stood  a  long 
time  regarding  the  bird.  "  Ah,"  my  friend  thought, 
"  if  I  could  only  hear  that  song  with  his  ears ! "  How 
it  brought  back  his  youth  and  all  those  long-gone 
days  on  his  native  hills ! 

The  power  of  bird-songs  over  us  is  so  much  a  mat- 
ter of  association  that  every  traveler  to  other  coun- 
tries finds  the  feathered  songsters  of  less  merit  than 
those  he  left  behind.  The  stranger  does  not  hear 
the  birds  in  the  same  receptive,  uncritical  frame  of 
mind  as  does  the  native;  they  are  not  in  the  same 
way  the  voices  of  the  place  and  the  season.  What 
music  can  there  be  in  that  long,  piercing,  far-heard 
note  of  the  first  meadowlark  in  spring  to  any  but 
a  native,  or  in  the  "  o-ka-lee  "  of  the  red-shouldered 
starling  as  he  rests  upon  the  willows  in  March  ?  A 
stranger  would  probably  recognize  melody  and  a 
wild  woodsy  quality  in  the  flutings  of  the  veery 
thrush;  but  how  much  more  they  would  mean  to 
him  after  he  had  spent  many  successive  Junes 
threading  our  northern  trout-streams  and  encamp- 
ing on  their  banks !    The  veery  will  come  early  in 

34 


BIRD-SONGS 

the  morning,  and  again  at  sundown,  and  perch  above 
your  tent,  and  blow  his  soft,  reverberant  note  for 
many  minutes  at  a  time.  The  strain  repeats  the 
echoes  of  the  hmpid  stream  in  the  halls  and  corri- 
dors of  the  leafy  woods. 

While  in  England  in  1882, 1  rushed  about  two  or 
three  counties  in  late  June  and  early  July,  bent  on 
hearing  the  song  of  the  nightingale,  but  missed  it  by 
a  few  days,  and  in  some  cases,  as  it  seemed,  only  by 
a  few  hours.  The  nightingale  seems  to  be  wound  up 
to  go  only  so  long,  or  till  about  the  middle  of  June, 
and  it  is  only  by  a  rare  chance  that  you  hear  one 
after  that  date.  Then  I  came  home  to  hear  a  nightin- 
gale in  song  one  winter  morning  in  a  friend's  house 
in  the  city.  It  was  a  curious  let-down  to  my  en- 
thusiasm. A  caged  song  in  a  city  chamber  in  broad 
dayhght,  in  lieu  of  the  wild,  free  song  in  the  gloam- 
ing of  an  English  landscape!  I  closed  my  eyes, 
abstracted  myself  from  my  surroundings,  and  tried 
my  best  to  fancy  myself  Hstening  to  the  strain  back 
there  amid  the  scenes  I  had  haunted  about  Hasle- 
mere  and  Godalming,  but  with  poor  success,  I  sus- 
pect. The  nightingale's  song,  like  the  lark's,  needs 
vista,  needs  all  the  accessories  of  time  and  place. 
The  song  is  not  all  in  the  singing,  any  more  than 
the  wit  is  all  in  the  saying.  It  is  in  the  occasion,  the 
surroundings,  the  spirit  of  which  it  is  the  expression. 
My  friend  said  that  the  bird  did  not  fully  let  itself 
out.   Its  song  was  a  brilliant  medley  of  notes,  —  no 

35 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

theme  that  I  could  detect,  —  like  the  lark's  song  in 
this  respect;  all  the  notes  of  the  field  and  forest 
appeared  to  be  the  gift  of  this  bird,  but  what  tone! 
what  accent !  like  that  of  a  great  poet ! 

Nearly  every  May  I  am  seized  with  an  impulse  to 
go  back  to  the  scenes  of  my  youth,  and  hear  the 
bobolinks  in  the  home  meadows  once  more.  I  am 
sure  they  sing  there  better  than  anywhere  else.  They 
probably  drink  nothing  but  dew,  and  the  dew  dis- 
tilled in  those  high  pastoral  regions  has  surprising 
virtues.  It  gives  a  clear,  full,  vibrant  quality  to  the 
birds'  voices  that  I  have  never  heard  elsewhere.  The 
night  of  my  arrival,  I  leave  my  southern  window 
open,  so  that  the  meadow  chorus  may  come  pour- 
ing in  before  I  am  up  in  the  morning.  How  it  does 
transport  me  athwart  the  years,  and  make  me  a 
boy  again,  sheltered  by  the  paternal  wing !  On  one 
occasion,  the  third  morning  after  my  arrival,  a  bobo- 
link appeared  with  a  new  note  in  his  song.  The 
note  sounded  like  the  word  "  baby "  uttered  with  a 
peculiar,  tender  resonance:  but  it  was  clearly  an 
interpolation;  it  did  not  belong  there;  it  had  no 
relation  to  the  rest  of  the  song.  Yet  the  bird  never 
failed  to  utter  it  with  the  same  joy  and  confidence  as 
the  rest  of  his  song.  Maybe  it  was  the  beginning 
of  a  variation  that  will  in  time  result  in  an  entirely 
new  bobolink  song. 

On  my  last  spring  visit  to  my  native  hills,  my 
attention  was  attracted  to  another  songster  not  seen 

36 


BIRD-SONGS 

or  heard  there  in  my  youth,  namely,  the  prairie 
horned  lark.  Flocks  of  these  birds  used  to  be  seen 
in  some  of  the  Northern  States  in  the  late  fall  dur- 
ing their  southern  migrations;  but  within  the  last 
twenty  years  they  have  become  regular  summer 
residents  in  the  hilly  parts  of  many  sections  of  New 
York  and  New  England.  They  are  genuine  skylarks, 
and  lack  only  the  powers  of  song  to  make  them  as 
attractive  as  their  famous  cousins  of  Europe. 

The  larks  are  ground-birds  when  they  perch,  and 
sky-birds  when  they  sing ;  from  the  turf  to  the  clouds 
—  nothing  between.  Our  homed  lark  mounts  up- 
ward on  quivering  wing  in  the  true  lark  fashion,  and, 
spread  out  against  the  sky  at  an  altitude  of  two  or 
three  hundred  feet,  hovers  and  sings.  The  watcher 
and  listener  below  holds  him  in  his  eye,  but  the  ear 
catches  only  a  faint,  broken,  half-inarticulate  note 
now  and  then  —  mere  splinters,  as  it  were,  of  the 
song  of  the  skylark.  The  song  of  the  latter  is  con- 
tinuous, and  is  load  and  humming;  it  is  a  fountain 
of  jubilant  song  up  there  in  the  sky:  but  our  lark 
sings  in  snatches;  at  each  repetition  of  its  notes  it 
dips  forward  and  downward  a  few  feet,  and  then 
rises  again.  One  day  I  kept  my  eye  upon  one  until 
it  had  repeated  its  song  one  hundred  and  three 
times ;  then  it  closed  its  wings,  and  dropped  toward 
the  earth  like  a  plummet,  as  does  its  European  con- 
gener. While  I  was  watching  the  bird,  a  bobolink 
flew  over  my  head,  between  me  and  the  lark,  and 

37 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

poured  out  his  voluble  and  copious  strain.  "  What  a 
contrast,"  I  thought,  "between  the  voice  of  the 
spluttering,  tongue-tied  lark,  and  the  free,  liquid, 
and  varied  song  of  the  bobolink!" 

I  have  heard  of  a  curious  fact  in  the  life-histories 
of  these  larks  in  the  West.  A  Michigan  woman  once 
wrote  me  that  her  brother,  who  was  an  engineer  on 
an  express  train  that  made  daily  trips  between  two 
Western  cities,  reported  that  many  birds  were  struck 
by  the  engine  every  day,  and  killed  —  often  as  many 
as  thirty  on  a  trip  of  sixty  miles.  Birds  of  many 
kinds  were  killed,  but  the  most  common  was  a  bird 
that  went  in  flocks,  the  description  of  which  an- 
swered to  the  horned  lark.  Since  then  I  have  read 
in  a  Minnesota  newspaper  that  many  horned  larks 
are  killed  by  railroad  locomotives  in  that  State.  It 
was  thought  that  the  birds  sat  behind  the  rails  to  get 
out  of  the  wind,  and  on  starting  up  in  front  of  the 
advancing  train,  were  struck  down  by  the  engine. 
The  Michigan  engineer  referred  to  thought  that  the 
birds  gathered  upon  the  track  to  earth  their  wings, 
or  else  to  pick  up  the  grain  that  leaks  out  of  the 
wheat-trains,  and  sows  the  track  from  Dakota  to 
the  seaboard.  Probably  the  wind  which  they  might 
have  to  face  in  getting  up  was  the  prime  cause  of 
their  being  struck.  One  does  not  think  of  the  loco- 
motive as  a  bird-destroyer,  though  it  is  well  known 
that  many  of  the  smaller  mammals  often  fall  be- 
neath it. 

38 


BIRD-SONGS 

A  very  interesting  feature  of  our  bird-songs  is  the 
wing-song,  or  song  of  ecstasy.  It  is  not  the  gift  of 
many  of  our  birds.  Indeed,  less  than  a  dozen  species 
are  known  to  me  as  ever  singing  on  the  wing.  It 
seems  to  spring  from  more  intense  excitement  and 
self-abandonment  than  the  ordinary  song  delivered 
from  the  perch.  When  its  joy  reaches  the  point  of 
rapture,  the  bird  is  hterally  carried  off  its  feet,  and 
up  it  goes  into  the  air,  pouring  out  its  song  as  a 
rocket  pours  out  its  sparks.  The  skylark  and  the 
bobolink  habitually  do  this,  while  a  few  others  of 
our  birds  do  it  only  on  occasions.  One  summer,  up 
in  the  Catskills,  I  added  another  name  to  my  Hst 
of  ecstatic  singers  —  that  of  the  vesper  sparrow. 
Several  times  I  heard  a  new  song  in  the  air,  and 
caught  a  ghmpse  of  the  bird  as  it  dropped  back  to 
the  earth.  My  attention  would  be  attracted  by  a 
succession  of  hurried,  chirping  noljcs,  followed  by  a 
brief  burst  of  song,  then  by  the  vanishing  form  of  the 
bird.  One  day  I  was  lucky  enough  to  see  the  bird  as 
it  was  rising  to  its  climax  in  the  air,  and  to  identify 
it  as  the  vesper  sparrow.  The  burst  of  song  that 
crowned  the  upward  flight  of  seventy-five  or  one 
hundred  feet  was  brief ;  but  it  was  brilliant  and 
striking,  and  entirely  unlike  the  leisurely  chant  of 
the  bird  while  upon  the  ground.  It  suggested  a  lark, 
but  was  less  buzzing  or  humming.  The  preliminary 
chirping  notes,  uttered  faster  and  faster  as  the  bird 
mounted  in  the  air,  were  like  the  trail  of  sparks 

39 


WAYS   OF   NATURE 

which  a  rocket  emits  before  its  grand  burst  of  color 
at  the  top  of  its  flight. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  bird  is  quite 
lark-hke  in  its  color  and  markings,  having  the  two 
lateral  white  quills  in  the  tail,  and  it  has  the  habit 
of  elevating  the  feathers  on  the  top  of  the  head  so 
as  to  suggest  a  crest.  The  solitary  skylark  that  I 
discovered  several  years  ago  in  a  field  near  me  was 
seen  on  several  occasions  paying  his  addresses  to 
one  of  these  birds,  but  the  vesper-bird  was  shy,  and 
eluded  all  his  advances. 

Probably  the  perch-songster  among  our  ordinary 
birds  that  is  most  regularly  seized  with  the  fit  of 
ecstasy  that  results  in  this  lyric  burst  in  the  air,  as 
I  described  in  my  first  book,  "  Wake  Robin,"  over 
thirty  years  ago,  is  the  oven-bird,  or  wood-accentor 
—  the  golden-crowned  thrush  of  the  old  ornitholo- 
gists. Every  loiterer  about  the  woods  knows  this 
pretty,  speckled-breasted,  olive-backed  little  bird, 
which  walks  along  over  the  dry  leaves  a  few  yards 
from  him,  moving  its  head  as  it  walks,  like  a  minia- 
ture domestic  fowl.  Most  birds  are  very  stiff-necked, 
hke  the  robin,  and  as  they  run  or  hop  upon  the 
ground,  carry  the  head  as  if  it  were  riveted  to  the 
body.  Not  so  the  oven-bird,  or  the  other  birds  that 
walk,  as  the  cow-bunting,  or  the  quail,  or  the  crow. 
They  move  the  head  forward  with  the  movement 
of  the  feet.  The  sharp,  reiterated,  almost  screech- 
ing song  of  the  oven-bird,  as  it  perches  on  a  limb  a 

40 


BIRD-SONGS 

few  feet  from  the  ground,  like  the  words,  **  preacher, 
preacher,  preacher,"  or  "teacher,  teacher,  teacher," 
uttered  louder  and  louder,  and  repeated  six  or 
seven  times,  is  also  familiar  to  most  ears;  but  its 
wild,  ringing,  rapturous  burst  of  song  in  the  air  high 
above  the  tree-tops  is  not  so  well  known.  From  a 
very  prosy,  tiresome,  unmelodious  singer,  it  is  sud- 
denly transformed  for  a  brief  moment  into  a  lyric 
poet  of  great  power.  It  is  a  great  surprise.  The 
bird  undergoes  a  complete  transformation.  Ordi- 
narily it  is  a  very  quiet,  demure  sort  of  bird.  It 
walks  about  over  the  leaves,  moving  its  head  like  a 
little  hen;  then  perches  on  a  limb  a  few  feet  from 
the  ground  and  sends  forth  its  shrill,  rather  prosy, 
unmusical  chant.  Surely  it  is  an  ordinary,  common- 
place bird.  But  wait  till  the  inspiration  of  its  flight- 
song  is  upon  it.  What  a  change!  Up  it  goes 
through  the  branches  of  the  trees,  leaping  from 
limb  to  limb,  faster  and  faster,  till  it  shoots  from 
the  tree-tops  fifty  or  more  feet  into  the  air  above 
them,  and  bursts  into  an  ecstasy  of  song,  rapid, 
ringing,  lyrical ;  no  more  like  its  habitual  perform- 
ance than  a  match  is  like  a  rocket ;  brief  but 
thrilling ;  emphatic  but  musical.  Having  reached 
its  climax  of  flight  and  song,  the  bird  closes  its 
wings  and  drops  nearly  perpendicularly  downward 
like  the  skylark.  If  its  song  were  more  prolonged,  it 
would  rival  the  song  of  that  famous  bird.  The  bird 
does  this  many  times  a  day  during  early  June,  but 

41 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

oftenest  at  twilight.  The  song  in  quality  and  general 
cast  is  like  that  of  its  congener,  the  water-accentor, 
which,  however,  I  believe  is  never  delivered  on  the 
wing.  From  its  habit  of  singing  at  twihght,  and  from 
the  swift,  darting  motions  of  the  bird,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  in  it  we  have  solved  the  mystery  of 
Thoreau's  "  night- warbler,"  that  puzzled  and  eluded 
him  for  years.  Emerson  told  him  he  must  beware  of 
finding  and  booking  it,  lest  life  should  have  nothing 
more  to  show  him.  The  older  ornithologists  must 
have  heard  this  song  many  times,  but  they  never 
seem  to  have  suspected  the  identity  of  the  singer. 

Other  birds  that  sing  on  the  wing  are  the  meadow- 
lark,  goldfinch,  purple  finch,  indigo-bird,  Maryland 
yellow-throat,  and  woodcock.  The  flight-song  of 
the  woodcock  I  have  heard  but  twice  in  my  life. 
The  first  time  was  in  the  evening  twilight  about  the 
middle  of  April.  The  bird  was  calling  in  the  dusk 
"yeap,  yeap,"  or  "seap,  seap,"  from  the  ground, 
—  a  peculiar  reedy  call.  Then,  by  and  by,  it  started 
upward  on  an  easy  slant,  that  peculiar  whistling 
of  its  wings  alone  heard;  then,  at  an  altitude  of  oiie 
hundred  feet  or  more,  it  began  to  float  about  in 
wide  circles  and  broke  out  in  an  ecstatic  chipper, 
almost  a  warble  at  times,  with  a  peculiar  smacking 
musical  quaUty;  then,  in  a  minute  or  so,  it  dropped 
back  to  the  ground  again,  not  straight  down  like  the 
lark,  but  more  spirally,  and  continued  its  call  as  be- 
fore. In  less  than  five  minutes  it  was  up  again.  The 

42 


BIRD-SONGS 

next  time,  a  few  years  later,  I  heard  the  song  in 
company  with  a  friend,  Dr.  Clara  Barrus.  Let 
me  give  the  woman's  impression  of  the  song  as  she 
afterward  wrote  it  up  for  a  popular  journal. 

"  The  sunset  Hght  was  flooding  all  this  May  love- 
liness of  field  and  farm  and  distant  wood;  song 
sparrows  were  bUthely  pouring  out  happiness  by  the 
throatful ;  peepers  were  piping  and  toads  trilling,  and 
we  thought  it  no  hardship  to  wait  in  such  a  place  till 
the  dusk  should  gather,  and  the  wary  woodcock  an- 
nounce his  presence.  But  hark!  while  yet  'tis  light, 
only  a  few  rods  distant,  I  hear  that  welcome  *  seap . . . 
seap,'  and  lo !  a  chipper  and  a  chirr,  and  past  us  he 
flies,  —  a  direct,  slanting  upward  flight,  somewhat 
labored, — his  bill  showing  long  against  the  reddened 
sky.  *  He  has  something  in  his  mouth,'  I  start  to  say, 
when  I  bethink  me  what  a  long  bill  he  has.  Around, 
above  us  he  flies  in  wide,  ambitious  circles,  the  while 
we  are  enveloped,  as  it  were,  in  that  hurried  chip- 
pering  sound — fine,  elusive,  now  near,  now  distant. 
How  rapid  is  the  flight !  Now  it  sounds  faster  and 
faster, '  hke  a  whiplash  flashed  through  the  air,'  said 
my  friend;  up,  up  he  soars,  till  he  becomes  lost  to 
sight  at  the  instant  that  his  song  ends  in  that  last 
mad  ecstasy  that  just  precedes  his  alighting." 

The  meadowlark  sings  in  a  level  flight,  half  hov- 
ering in  the  air,  giving  voice  to  a  rapid  medley  of 
lark-hke  notes.  The  goldfinch  also  sings  in  a  level 
flight,  beating  the  air  slowly  with  its  wings  broadly 

43 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

open,  and  pouring  out  its  jubilant,  ecstatic  strain.  I 
think  it  indulges  in  this  wing-song  only  in  the  early 
season.  After  the  mother  bird  has  begun  sitting,  the 
male  circles  about  within  earshot  of  her,  in  that 
curious  undulating  flight,  uttering  his  "per-chic-o- 
pee,  per-chic-o-pee,"  while  the  female  calls  back  to 
him  in  the  tenderest  tones,  "  Yes,  lovie;  I  hear  you." 
The  indigo-bird  and  the  purple  finch,  when  their 
happiness  becomes  too  full  and  buoyant  for  them 
longer  to  control  it,  launch  into  the  air,  and  sing 
briefly,  ecstatically,  in  a  tremulous,  hovering  flight. 
The  air-song  of  these  birds  does  not  differ  essentially 
from  the  song  delivered  from  the  perch,  except  that 
it  betrays  more  excitement,  and  hence  is  a  more 
complete  lyrical  rapture. 

The  purple  finch  is  our  finest  songster  among  the 
finches.  Its  strain  is  so  soft  and  melodious,  and 
touched  with  such  a  childlike  gayety  and  plaintive- 
ness,  that  I  think  it  might  sound  well  even  in  a  cage 
inside  a  room,  if  the  bird  would  only  sing  with 
the  same  joyous  abandonment,  which,  of  course,  it 
would  not  do. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  individual  birds  of 
the  same  species  show  different  degrees  of  musical 
ability.  This  is  often  noticed  in  caged  birds,  among 
which  the  principle  of  variation  seems  more  active ; 
but  an  attentive  observer  notes  the  same  fact  in  wild 
birds.  Occasionally  he  hears  one  that  in  powers  of 
song  surpasses  all  its  fellows.  I  have  heard  a  sparrow, 

44 


BIRD-SONGS 

an  oriole,  and  a  wood  thrush,  each  of  which  had  a 
song  of  its  own  that  far  exceeded  any  other.  I  stood 
one  day  by  a  trout-stream,  and  suspended  my  fish- 
ing for  several  minutes  to  watch  a  song  sparrow 
that  was  singing  on  a  dry  limb  before  me.  He  had 
five  distinct  songs,  each  as  markedly  different  from 
the  others  as  any  human  songs,  which  he  repeated 
one  after  the  other.  He  may  have  had  a  sixth  or 
a  seventh,  but  he  bethought  liimself  of  some  busi- 
ness in  the  next  field,  and  flew  away  before  he  had 
exhausted  his  repertory.  I  once  had  a  letter  from 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  said  he  had  read  an 
account  I  had  written  of  the  song  of  the  English 
blackbird.  He  said  I  might  as  well  talk  of  the  song 
of  man;  that  every  blackbird  had  its  own  song;  and 
then  he  told  me  of  a  remarkable  singer  he  used  to 
hear  somewhere  amid  the  Scottish  hills.  But  his 
singer  was,  of  course,  an  exception  ;  twenty-four 
blackbirds  out  of  every  twenty-five  probably  sing 
the  same  song,  with  no  appreciable  variations:  but 
the  twenty-fifth  may  show  extraordinary  powers.  I 
told  Stevenson  that  his  famous  singer  had  probably 
been  to  school  to  some  nightingale  on  the  Continent 
or  in  southern  England,  I  might  have  told  him  of  the 
robin  I  once  heard  here  that  sang  with  great  spirit 
and  accuracy  the  song  of  the  brown  thrasher,  or  of 
another  that  had  the  note  of  the  whip-poor-will 
interpolated  in  the  regular  robin  song,  or  of  still 
another  that  had  the  call  of  the  quail.    In  each  case 

45 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  bird  had  probably  heard  the  song  and  learned 
it  while  very  young.  In  the  Trossachs,  in  Scotland, 
I  followed  a  song  thrush  about  for  a  long  time,  at- 
tracted by  its  peculiar  song.  It  repeated  over  and 
over  again  three  or  four  notes  of  a  well-known  air, 
which  it  might  have  caught  from  some  shepherd 
boy  whistling  to  his  flock  or  to  his  cow. 

The  songless  birds  —  why  has  Nature  denied 
them  this  gift  ?  But  they  nearly  all  have  some  musi- 
cal call  or  impulse  that  serves  them  very  well.  The 
quail  has  his  whistle,  the  woodpecker  his  drum,  the 
pewee  his  plaintive  cry,  the  chickadee  his  exqui- 
sitely sweet  call,  the  highhole  his  long,  repeated 
"  wick,  wick,  wick,"  one  of  the  most  welcome  sounds 
of  spring,  the  jay  his  musical  gurgle,  the  hawk  his 
scream,  the  crow  his  sturdy  caw.  Only  one  of  our 
pretty  birds  of  the  orchard  is  reduced  to  an  all  but 
inaudible  note,  and  that  is  the  cedar-bird. 


Ill 

NATURE   WITH   CLOSED   DOORS 

DECEMBER  in  our  climate  is  the  month  when 
Nature  finally  shuts  up  house  and  turns  the 
key.  She  has  been  slowly  packing  up  and  putting 
away  her  things  and  closing  a  door  and  a  window 
here  and  there  all  the  fall.  Now  she  completes  the 
work  and  puts  up  the  last  bar.  She  is  ready  for 
winter.  The  leaves  are  all  off  the  trees,  except  that 
here  and  there  a  beech  or  an  oak  or  a  hickory  still 
chngs  to  a  remnant  of  its  withered  foliage.  Her 
streams  are  full,  her  new  growths  of  wood  are  rip- 
ened, her  saps  and  juices  are  quiescent.  The  musk- 
rat  has  completed  his  house  in  the  shallow  pond  or 
stream,  the  beaver  in  the  northern  woods  has  com- 
pleted his.  The  wild  mice  and  the  chipmunk  have 
laid  up  their  winter  stores  of  nuts  and  grains  in  their 
dens  in  the  ground  and  in  the  cavities  of  trees.  The 
woodchuck  is  rolled  up  in  his  burrow  in  the  hill- 
side, sleeping  his  long  winter  sleep.  The  coon  has 
deserted  his  chamber  in  the  old  tree  and  gone  into 
winter  quarters  in  his  den  in  the  rocks.  The  winter 
birds  have  taken  on  a  good  coat  of  fat  against  the 
coming  cold  and  a  possible  scarcity  of  food.    The 

47 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

frogs  and  toads  are  all  in  their  hibernaculums  in  the 
ground. 

I  saw  it  stated  the  other  day,  in  a  paper  read  before 
some  scientific  body,  that  the  wood  frogs  retreat  two 
feet  into  the  ground  beyond  the  reach  of  frost.  In 
two  instances  I  have  found  the  wood  frog  in  Decem- 
ber with  a  covering  of  less  than  two  inches  of  leaves 
and  moss.  It  had  buried  itself  in  the  soil  and  leaf 
mould  only  to  the  depth  of  the  thickness  of  its  own 
body,  and  for  covering  had  only  the  ordinary  coat 
of  dry  leaves  and  pine  needles  to  be  found  in  the 
wood.  It  was  evidently  counting  upon  the  snow  for 
its  main  protection.  In  one  case  I  marked  the  spot, 
and  returned  there  in  early  spring  to  see  how  the 
frog  had  wintered.  I  found  it  all  right.  Evidently  it 
had  some  charm  against  the  cold,  for  while  the  earth 
around  and  beneath  it  was  yet  frozen  solid,  there 
was  no  frost  in  the  frog.  It  was  not  a  brisk  frog,  but 
it  was  well,  and  when  I  came  again  on  a  warm  day  a 
week  later,  it  had  come  forth  from  its  retreat  and 
was  headed  for  the  near-by  marsh,  where  in  April, 
with  its  kith  and  kin,  it  helped  make  the  air  vocal 
with  its  love-calls.  A  friend  of  mine,  one  mild  day 
late  in  December,  found  a  wood  frog  sitting  upon  the 
snow  in  the  woods.  She  took  it  home  and  put  it  to 
bed  in  the  soil  of  one  of  her  flower-pots  in  the  cellar. 
In  the  spring  she  found  it  in  good  condition,  and  in 
April  carried  it  back  to  the  woods.  The  hyla,  or  little 
piping  frog,  passes  the  winter  in  the  ground  like 

48 


NATURE  WITH   CLOSED   DOORS 

the  wood  frog.  I  have  seen  the  toad  go  into  the 
ground  in  the  late  fall.  It  is  an  interesting  proceed- 
ing. It  literally  elbows  its  way  into  the  soil.  It  sits 
on  end,  and  works  and  presses  with  the  sharp  joints 
of  its  folded  legs  until  it  has  sunk  itself  at  a  suffi- 
cient depth,  which  is  only  a  few  inches  beneath  the 
surface.  The  water  frogs  appear  to  pass  the  winter 
in  the  mud  at  the  bottom  of  ponds  and  marshes. 
The  queen  bumblebee  and  the  queen  hornet,  I 
think,  seek  out  their  winter  quarters  in  holes  in  the 
ground  in  September,  while  the  drones  and  the 
workers  perish.  The  honey-bees  do  not  hibernate: 
they  must  have  food  all  winter ;  but  our  native  wild 
bees  are  dormant  during  the  cold  months,  and  sur- 
vive the  winter  only  in  the  person  of  the  queen 
mother.  In  the  spring  these  queens  set  up  house- 
keeping alone,  and  found  new  families. 

Insects  in  all  stages  of  their  growth  are  creatures 
of  the  warmth;  the  heat  is  the  motive  power  that 
makes  them  go;  when  this  fails,  they  are  still.  The 
katydids  rasp  away  in  the  fall  as  long  as  there  is 
warmth  enough  to  keep  them  going;  as  the  heat 
fails,  they  fail,  till  from  the  emphatic  "  Katy  did  it " 
of  August  they  dwindle  to  a  hoarse,  dying,  "  Kate, 
Kate,"  in  October.  Think  of  the  stillness  that  falls 
upon  the  myriad  wood-borers  in  the  dry  trees  and 
stumps  in  the  forest  as  the  chill  of  autumn  comes  on. 
All  summer  have  they  worked  incessantly  in  oak 
and  hickory  and  birch  and  chestnut  and  spruce, 

49 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

some  of  them  making  a  sound  exactly  like  that  of 
the  old-fashioned  hand  augur,  others  a  fine,  snap- 
ping, and  splintering  sound ;  but  as  the  cold  comes 
on,  they  go  slower  and  slower,  till  they  finally  cease 
to  move.  A  warm  day  starts  them  again,  slowly 
or  briskly  according  to  the  degree  of  heat,  but  in 
December  they  are  finally  stilled  for  the  season. 
These  creatures,  like  the  big  fat  grubs  of  the  June 
beetles  which  one  sometimes  finds  in  the  ground  or 
in  decayed  wood,  are  full  of  frost  in  winter;  cut  one 
of  the  big  grubs  in  two,  and  it  looks  like  a  lump  of 
ice  cream. 

Some  time  in  October  the  crows  begin  to  collect 
together  in  large  flocks  and  establish  their  winter 
quarters.  They  choose  some  secluded  wood  for  a 
roosting-place,  and  thither  all  the  crows  for  many 
square  miles  of  country  betake  themselves  at  night, 
and  thence  they  disperse  in  all  directions  again  in 
the  early  morning.  The  crow  is  a  social  bird,  a  true 
American ;  no  hermit  or  recluse  is  he.  The  winter 
probably  brings  them  together  in  these  large  colonies 
for  purposes  of  sociability  and  for  greater  warmth. 
By  roosting  close  together  and  quite  filling  a  tree- 
top,  there  must  result  some  economy  of  heat. 

I  have  seen  it  stated  in  a  rhetorical  flight  of  some 
writer  that  the  new  buds  crowd  the  old  leaves  off. 
But  this  is  not  true  as  a  rule.  The  new  bud  is  formed 
in  the  axil  of  the  old  leaf  long  before  the  leaves  are 
ready  to  fall.    With  only  two  species  of  our  trees 

50 


NATURE  WITH  CLOSED  DOORS 

known  to  me  might  the  swelling  bud  push  off  the  old 
leaf.  In  the  sumach  and  button-ball  or  plane-tree 
the  new  bud  is  formed  immediately  under  the  base 
of  the  old  leaf-stalk,  by  which  it  is  covered  like  a 
cap.  Examine  the  fallen  leaves  of  these  trees,  and 
you  will  see  the  cavity  in  the  base  of  each  where  the 
new  bud  was  cradled.  Why  the  beech,  the  oak,  and 
the  hickory  chng  to  their  old  leaves  is  not  clear.  It 
may  be  simply  a  slovenly  trait  —  inability  to  finish 
and  have  done  with  a  thing  —  a  fault  of  so  many 
people.  Some  oaks  and  beeches  appear  to  lack 
decision  of  character.  It  requires  strength  and  vital- 
ity, it  seems,  simply  to  let  go.  Kill  a  tree  suddenly, 
and  the  leaves  wither  upon  the  branches.  How 
neatly  and  thoroughly  the  maples,  the  ashes,  the 
birches,  the  elm  clean  up.  They  are  tidy,  energetic 
trees,  and  can  turn  over  a  new  leaf  without  hesitation. 
A  correspondent,  writing  to  me  from  one  of  the 
colleges,  suggests  that  our  spring  really  begins  in 
December,  because  the  "annual  cycle  of  vegetable 
life  "  seems  to  start  then.  At  this  time  he  finds  that 
many  of  our  wild  flowers  —  the  bloodroot,  hepatica, 
columbine,  shinleaf,  maidenhair  fern,  etc.  —  have 
all  made  quite  a  start  toward  the  next  season's 
growth,  in  some  cases  the  new  shoot  being  an  inch 
high.  But  the  real  start  of  the  next  season's  vege- 
table life  in  this  sense  is  long  before  December.  It 
is  in  late  summer,  when  the  new  buds  are  formed 
on  the  trees.  Nature  looks  ahead,  and  makes  ready 

51 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

for  the  new  season  in  the  midst  of  the  old.  Cut 
open  the  terminal  hickory  buds  in  the  late  fall  and 
you  will  find  the  new  growth  of  the  coming  season 
all  snugly  packed  away  there,  many  times  folded 
up  and  wrapped  about  by  protecting  scales.  The 
catkins  of  the  birches,  alders,  and  hazel  are  fully 
formed,  and  as  in  the  case  of  the  buds,  are  like  eggs 
to  be  hatched  by  the  warmth  of  spring.  The  present 
season  is  always  the  mother  of  the  next,  and  the 
inception  takes  place  long  before  the  sun  loses  his 
power.  The  eggs  that  hold  the  coming  crop  of 
insect  life  are  mostly  laid  in  the  late  summer  or  early 
fall,  and  an  analogous  start  is  made  in  the  vegeta- 
ble world.  The  egg,  the  seed,  the  bud,  are  all  ahke 
in  many  ways,  and  look  to  the  future.  Our  earhest 
spring  flower,  the  skunk-cabbage,  may  be  found 
with  its  round  green  spear-point  an  inch  or  two 
above  the  mould  in  December.  It  is  ready  to  wel- 
come and  make  the  most  of  the  first  fitful  March 
warmth.  Look  at  the  elms,  too,  and  see  how  they 
swarm  with  buds.  In  early  April  they  suggest  a 
swarm  of  bees. 

In  all  cases,  before  Nature  closes  her  house  in  the 
fall,  she  makes  ready  for  its  spring  opening. 


IV 
THE   WIT   OF   A   DUCK 

THE  homing  instinct  in  birds  and  animals  is  one 
of  their  most  remarkable  traits:  their  strong 
local  attachments  and  their  skill  in  finding  their  way 
back  when  removed  to  a  distance.  It  seems  at  times 
as  if  they  possessed  some  extra  sense  —  the  home 
sense  —  which  operates  unerringly.  I  saw  this  illus- 
trated one  spring  in  the  case  of  a  mallard  drake. 

My  son  had  two  ducks,  and  to  mate  with  them 
he  procured  a  drake  of  a  neighbor  who  lived  two 
miles  south  of  us.  He  brought  the  drake  home  in  a 
bag.  The  bird  had  no  opportunity  to  see  the  road 
along  which  it  was  carried,  or  to  get  the  general 
direction,  except  at  the  time  of  starting,  when  the  boy 
carried  him  a  few  rods  openly. 

He  was  placed  with  the  ducks  in  a  spring  run, 
under  a  tree  in  a  secluded  place  on  the  river  slope, 
about  a  hundred  yards  from  the  highway.  The  two 
ducks  treated  him  very  contemptuously.  It  was 
easy  to  see  that  the  drake  was  homesick  from  the 
first  hour,  and  he  soon  left  the  presence  of  the 
scornful  ducks. 

Then  we  shut  the  three  in  the  barn  together, 

53 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

and  kept  them  there  a  day  and  a  night.  Still  the 
friendship  did  not  ripen;  the  ducks  and  the  drake 
separated  the  moment  we  let  them  out.  Left  to 
himself,  the  drake  at  once  turned  his  head  home- 
ward, and  started  up  the  hill  for  the  highway. 

Then  we  shut  the  trio  up  together  again  for  a 
couple  of  days,  but  with  the  same  results  as  before. 
There  seemed  to  be  but  one  thought  in  the  mind  of 
the  drake,  and  that  was  home. 

Several  times  we  headed  him  off  and  brought 
him  back,  till  finally  on  the  third  or  fourth  day  I 
said  to  my  son,  "  If  that  drake  is  really  bound  to  go 
home,  he  shall  have  an  opportunity  to  make  the 
trial,  and  I  will  go  with  him  to  see  that  he  has  fair 
play."  We  withdrew,  and  the  homesick  mallard 
started  up  through  the  currant  patch,  then  through 
the  vineyard  toward  the  highway  which  he  had 
never  seen. 

When  he  reached  the  fence,  he  followed  it  south 
till  he  came  to  the  open  gate,  where  he  took  to  the 
road  as  confidently  as  if  he  knew  for  a  certainty 
that  it  would  lead  him  straight  to  his  mate.  How 
eagerly  he  paddled  along,  glancing  right  and  left, 
and  increasing  his  speed  at  every  step !  I  kept  about 
fifty  yards  behind  him.  Presently  he  met  a  dog;  he 
paused  and  eyed  the  animal  for  a  moment,  and  then 
turned  to  the  right  along  a  road  which  diverged 
just  at  that  point,  and  which  led  to  the  railroad 
station.    I  followed,  thinking  the  drake  would  soon 

54 


THE  WIT  OF  A  DUCK 

lose  his  bearings,  and  get  hopelessly  confused  in 
the  tangle  of  roads  that  converged  at  the  station. 

But  he  seemed  to  have  an  exact  map  of  the 
country  in  his  mind ;  he  soon  left  the  station  road, 
went  around  a  house,  through  a  \ineyard,  till  he 
struck  a  stone  fence  that  crossed  his  course  at  right 
angles ;  this  he  followed  eastward  till  it  was  joined 
by  a  barbed  wire  fence,  under  which  he  passed 
and  again  entered  the  highway  he  had  first  taken. 
Then  down  the  road  he  paddled  with  renewed 
confidence :  under  the  trees,  down  a  hill,  through  a 
grove,  over  a  bridge,  up  the  hill  again  toward  home. 

Presently  he  found  his  clue  cut  in  two  by  the 
railroad  track;  this  was  something  he  had  never 
before  seen;  he  paused,  glanced  up  it,  then  down 
it,  then  at  the  highway  across  it,  and  quickly  con- 
cluded this  last  was  his  course.  On  he  went  again, 
faster  and  faster. 

He  had  now  gone  half  the  distance,  and  was  get- 
ting tired.  A  httle  pool  of  water  by  the  roadside 
caught  his  eye.  Into  it  he  plunged,  bathed,  drank, 
preened  his  plumage  for  a  few  moments,  and  then 
started  homeward  again.  He  knew  his  home  was 
on  the  upper  side  of  the  road,  for  he  kept  his  eye 
bent  in  that  direction,  scanning  the  fields.  Twice 
he  stopped,  stretched  himself  up,  and  scanned  the 
landscape  intently;  then  on  again.  It  seemed  as  if 
an  im^sible  cord  was  attached  to  him,  and  he  was 
being  pulled  down  the  road. 

55 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

Just  opposite  a  farm  lane  which  led  up  to  a  group 
of  farm  buildings,  and  which  did  indeed  look  like 
his  home  lane,  he  paused  and  seemed  to  be  debating 
with  himself.  Two  women  just  then  came  along; 
they  lifted  and  flirted  their  skirts,  for  it  was  raining, 
and  this  disturbed  him  again  and  decided  him  to 
take  to  the  farm  lane.  Up  the  lane  he  went,  rather 
doubtingly,  I  thought. 

In  a  few  moments  it  brought  him  into  a  barn- 
yard, where  a  group  of  hens  caught  his  eye.  Evi- 
dently he  was  on  good  terms  with  hens  at  home,  for 
he  made  up  to  these  eagerly  as  if  to  tell  them  his 
troubles ;  but  the  hens  knew  not  ducks ;  they  with- 
drew suspiciously,  then  assumed  a  threatening  atti- 
tude, till  one  old  "  dominie  "  put  up  her  feathers 
and  charged  upon  him  viciously. 

Again  he  tried  to  make  up  to  them,  quacking 
softly,  and  again  he  was  repulsed.  Then  the  cattle 
in  the  yard  spied  this  strange  creature  and  came 
snifiing  toward  it,  full  of  curiosity. 

The  drake  quickly  concluded  he  had  got  into  the 
wrong  place,  and  turned  his  face  southward  again. 
Through  the  fence  he  went  into  a  plowed  field.  Pre- 
sently another  stone  fence  crossed  his  path;  along 
this  he  again  turned  toward  the  highway.  In  a  few 
minutes  he  found  himself  in  a  corner  formed  by  the 
meeting  of  two  stone  fences.  Then  he  turned  ap- 
pealingly  to  me,  uttering  the  soft  note  of  the  mallard. 
To  use  his  wings  never  seemed  to  cross  his  mind. 

56 


THE  WIT  OF  A  DUCK 

Well,  I  am  bound  to  confess  that  I  helped  the 
drake  over  the  wall,  but  I  sat  him  down  in  the  road 
as  impartially  as  I  could.  How  well  his  pink  feet 
knew  the  course !  How  they  flew  up  the  road !  His 
green  head  and  white  throat  fairly  twinkled  under 
the  long  avenue  of  oaks  and  chestnuts. 

At  last  we  came  in  sight  of  the  home  lane,  which 
led  up  to  the  farmhouse  one  hundred  or  more  yards 
from  the  road.  I  was  curious  to  see  if  he  would 
recognize  the  place.  At  the  gate  leading  into  the  lane 
he  paused.  He  had  just  gone  up  a  lane  that  looked 
like  that  and  had  been  disappointed.  What  should  he 
do  now  ?  Truth  compels  me  to  say  that  he  overshot 
the  mark :  he  kept  on  hesitatingly  along  the  highway. 

It  was  now  nearly  night.  I  felt  sure  the  duck 
would  soon  discover  his  mistake,  but  I  had  not  time 
to  watch  the  experiment  further.  I  went  around  the 
drake  and  turned  him  back.  As  he  neared  the  lane 
this  time  he  seemed  suddenly  to  see  some  familiar 
landmark,  and  he  rushed  up  it  at  the  top  of  his  speed. 
His  joy  and  eagerness  were  almost  pathetic. 

I  followed  close.  Into  the  house  yard  he  rushed 
with  uplifted  wings,  and  fell  down  almost  exhausted 
by  the  side  of  his  mate.  A  half  hour  later  the  two 
were  nipping  the  grass  together  in  the  pasture,  and 
he,  I  have  no  doubt,  was  eagerly  telling  her  the  story 
of  his  adventures. 


FACTORS   IN   ANIMAL   LIFE 

THE  question  that  the  Calif ornian  schoolchildren 
put  to  me,  *'  Have  the  birds  got  sense  ?  "  still 
"  sticks  in  my  crop." 

Such  extraordinary  sense  has  been  attributed  to 
most  of  the  wild  creatures  by  several  of  our  latter  day 
nature-writers,  that  I  have  been  moved  to  examine 
the  whole  question  more  thoroughly  than  ever  be- 
fore, and  to  find  out,  as  far  as  I  can,  just  how  much 
and  what  kind  of  sense  the  birds  and  four-footed 
beasts  have. 

In  this  and  in  some  following  chapters  I  shall 
make  an  effort  to  use  my  own  sense  to  the  best  advan- 
tage in  probing  that  of  the  animals,  which  has,  as  I 
think,  been  so  vastly  overrated. 

When  sentiment  gets  overripe,  it  becomes  senti- 
mentalism.  The  sentiment  for  nature  which  has 
been  so  assiduously  cultivated  in  our  times  is  fast 
undergoing  this  change,  and  is  softening  into  sen- 
timentalism  toward  the  lower  animals.  Many  a 
wholesome  feeling  can  be  pushed  so  far  that  it 
becomes  a  weakness  and  a  sign  of  disease.  Pity  for 
the  sufferings  of  our  brute  neighbors  may  be  a  manly 

59 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

feeling;  and  then  again  it  may  be  so  fostered  and 
cosseted  that  it  becomes  maudUn  and  unworthy. 
When  hospitals  are  founded  for  sick  or  homeless 
cats  and  dogs,  when  all  forms  of  vivisection  are 
cried  down,  when  the  animals  are  humanized  and 
books  are  written  to  show  that  the  wild  creatures 
have  schools  and  kindergartens,  and  that  their 
young  are  instructed  and  disciplined  in  quite  the 
human  way  by  their  fond  parents;  when  we  want 
to  believe  that  reason  and  not  instinct  guides  them, 
that  they  are  quite  up  in  some  of  the  simpler  arts  of 
surgery,  mending  or  amputating  their  own  broken 
limbs  and  salving  their  wounds,  —  when,  I  say,  our 
attitude  toward  the  natural  life  about  us  and  our 
feeling  for  it  have  reached  the  stage  implied  by 
these  things,  then  has  sentiment  degenerated  into 
sentimentalism,  and  our  appreciation  of  nature  lost 
its  firm  edge. 

No  doubt  there  is  a  considerable  number  of 
people  in  any  community  that  are  greatly  taken 
with  this  improved  anthropomorphic  view  of  wild 
nature  now  current  among  us.  Such  a  view  tickles 
the  fancy  and  touches  the  emotions.  It  makes  the 
wild  creatures  so  much  more  interesting.  Shall  we 
deny  anything  to  a  bird  or  beast  that  makes  it  more 
interesting,  and  more  worthy  of  our  study  and  ad- 
miration ? 

This  sentimental  view  of  animal  life  has  its  good 
side  and  its  bad  side.    Its  good  side  is  its  result  in 

60 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

making  us  more  considerate  and  merciful  toward 
our  brute  neighbors  ;  its  bad  side  is  seen  in  the 
degree  to  which  it  leads  to  a  false  interpretation  of 
their  Hves.  The  tendency  to  which  I  refer  is  no 
doubt  partly  the  result  of  our  growing  humanitari- 
anism  and  feeling  of  kinship  with  all  the  lower  orders 
of  creation,  and  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  we  Hve  in 
a  time  of  impromptu  nature  study,  when  birds  and 
plants  and  trees  are  fast  becoming  a  fad  with  half 
the  population,  and  when  the  "  yellow "  reporter  is 
abroad  in  the  fields  and  woods.  Never  before  in  my 
time  have  so  many  exaggerations  and  misconcep- 
tions of  the  wild  life  about  us  been  current  in  the 
popular  mind.  It  is  becoming  the  fashion  to  ascribe 
to  the  lower  animals  nearly  all  our  human  motives 
and  attributes,  and  often  to  credit  them  with  plans 
and  devices  that  imply  reason  and  a  fair  amount  of 
mechanical  knowledge.  An  illustration  of  this  is  the 
account  of  the  nest  of  a  pair  of  orioles,  as  described 
in  the  "  North  American  Review  "  for  May,  1903,  by 
a  writer  of  popular  nature  books.  These  orioles  built 
a  nest  so  extraordinary  that  it  can  be  accounted  for 
only  on  the  theory  that  there  is  a  school  of  the  woods, 
and  that  these  two  birds  had  been  pupils  there  and 
had  taken  an  advanced  course  in  Strings.  Among 
other  things  impossible  for  birds  to  do,  these  orioles 
tied  a  knot  in  the  end  of  a  string  to  prevent  its  fray- 
ing in  the  wind !  If  the  whole  idea  were  not  too  pre- 
posterous for  even  a  half-witted  child  to  beheve,  one 

61 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

might  ask,  What  in  the  name  of  anything  and  every- 
thing but  the  "  Modern  School  of  Nature  Study  "  do 
orioles  know  about  strings  fraying  in  the  wind  and 
the  use  of  knots  to  prevent  it  ?  They  have  never  had 
occasion  to  know ;  they  have  had  no  experience  with 
strings  that  hang  loose  and  unravel  in  the  wind. 
They  often  use  strings,  to  be  sure,  in  building  their 
nests,  but  they  use  them  in  a  sort  of  haphazard  way, 
weaving  them  awkwardly  into  the  structure,  and 
leaving  no  loose  ends  that  would  suffer  by  fraying 
in  the  wind.  Sometimes  they  use  strings  in  attaching 
the  nest  to  the  limb,  but  they  never  knot  or  tie  them ; 
they  simply  wind  them  round  and  round  as  a  child 
might.  It  is  possible  that  a  bird  might  be  taught  to 
tie  a  knot  with  its  foot  and  beak,  though  I  should 
have  to  see  it  done  to  be  convinced.  But  the  orioles 
in  question  not  only  tied  knots ;  they  tied  them  with 
a  "  reversed  double  hitch,  the  kind  that  a  man  uses 
in  cinching  his  saddle"!  More  wonderful  still,  not 
finding  in  a  New  England  elm-embowered  town  a 
suitable  branch  from  which  to  suspend  their  nest, 
the  birds  went  down  upon  the  ground  and  tied  three 
twigs  together  in  the  form  of  "  a  perfectly  measured 
triangle  "  (no  doubt  working  from  a  plan  drawn  to  a 
scale).  They  attached  to  the  three  sides  of  this  frame- 
work four  strings  of  equal  length  (eight  or  ten  inches), 
all  carefully  doubled,  tied  them  to  a  heavier  string, 
carried  the  whole  ingenious  contrivance  to  a  tree, 
and  tied  it  fast  to  a  limb  in  precisely  the  way  you 

62 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

or  I  would  have  done  it !  From  this  framework  they 
suspended  their  nest,  the  whole  structure  being 
about  two  feet  long,  and  having  the  effect  of  a  small 
hanging  basket.  Still  more  astonishing,  when  the 
genuineness  of  the  nest  is  questioned,  a  man  is 
found  who  makes  affidavit  that  he  saw  the  orioles 
build  it !  After  such  a  proceeding,  how  long  will  it 
be  before  the  water-birds  are  building  little  rush 
cradles  for  their  young,  or  rush  boats  to  be  driven 
about  the  ponds  and  lakes  by  means  of  leaf  sails,  or 
before  Jenny  Wren  will  be  living  in  a  log  cabin  of 
her  own  construction  ?  How  long  will  it  be  before 
some  one  makes  affidavit  that  the  sparrow  with  his 
bow  and  arrow  has  actually  been  seen  to  kill  Cock 
Robin,  and  the  beetle  with  his  thread  and  needle  en- 
gaged in  making  the  shroud  ?  Birds  show  the  taste 
and  skill  of  their  kind  in  building  their  nests,  but 
rarely  any  individual  ingenuity  and  inventiveness. 
The  nest  referred  to  is  on  a  plane  entirely  outside 
of  Nature  and  her  processes.  It  belongs  to  a  differ- 
ent order  of  things,  the  order  of  mechanical  contriv- 
ances, and  was  of  course  "made  up,"  probably  from 
a  real  oriole's  nest,  and  the  writer  who  vouches  for 
its  genuineness  has  been  the  victim  of  a  clever  prac- 
tical joke  —  a  willing  victim,  no  doubt,  since  he  is 
looking  in  Nature  for  just  this  kind  of  thing,  and 
since  he  believes  there  is  "  absolutely  no  limit  to  the 
variety  and  adaptiveness  of  Nature  even  in  a  single 
species."    If  there  is  no  such  limit,  then  I  suppose 

63 


WAYS  OF  NATURE  . 

we  need  not  be  surprised  to  meet  a  winged  horse,  or 
a  centaur,  or  a  mermaid  at  any  time. 

It  is  as  plain  as  anything  can  be  that  the  animals 
share  our  emotional  nature  in  vastly  greater  mea- 
sure than  they  do  our  intellectual  or  our  moral 
nature;  and  because  they  do  this,  because  they 
show  fear,  love,  joy,  anger,  sympathy,  jealousy, 
because  they  suffer  and  are  glad,  because  they  form 
friendships  and  local  attachments  and  have  the 
home  and  paternal  instincts,  in  short,  because  their 
lives  run  parallel  to  our  own  in  so  many  particulars, 
we  come,  if  we  are  not  careful,  to  ascribe  to  them  the 
whole  human  psychology.  But  it  is  equally  plain 
that  of  what  we  mean  by  mind,  intellect,  they  show 
only  a  trace  now  and  then.  They  do  not  accumulate 
a  store  of  knowledge  any  more  than  they  do  a  store 
of  riches.  A  store  of  knowledge  is  impossible  with- 
out language.  Man  began  to  emerge  from  the  lower 
orders  when  he  invented  a  language  of  some  sort. 
As  the  language  of  animals  is  Httle  more  than  vari- 
ous cries  expressive  of  pleasure  or  pain,  or  fear  or 
suspicion,  they  do  not  think  in  any  proper  sense, 
because  they  have  no  terms  in  which  to  think  —  no 
language.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  upon  this  point 
in  another  chapter.  One  trait  they  do  show  which  is 
the  first  step  toward  knowledge  —  curiosity.  Nearly 
all  the  animals  show  at  times  varying  degrees  of 
curiosity,  but  here  again  an  instinctive  feeling  of 
possible  danger  probably  lies  back  of  it.    They  even 

64 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

seem  to  show  at  times  a  kind  of  altruistic  feeling.  A 
correspondent  writes  me  that  she  possessed  a  canary 
which  Uved  to  so  great  an  age  that  it  finally  became 
so  feeble  it  could  not  crack  the  seeds  she  gave  it, 
when  the  other  birds,  its  own  progeny,  it  is  true,  fed 
it ;  and  Darwin  cites  cases  of  blind  birds,  in  a  state  of 
nature,  being  fed  by  their  fellows.  Probably  it  would 
be  hasty  to  conclude  that  such  acts  show  anything 
more  than  instinct.  I  should  be  slow  to  ascribe  to  the 
animals  any  notion  of  the  uses  of  punishment  as  we 
practice  it,  though  the  cat  will  box  her  kittens  when 
they  play  too  long  with  her  tail,  and  the  mother  hen 
will  separate  her  chickens  when  they  get  into  a  fight, 
and  sometimes  peck  one  or  both  of  them  on  the  head, 
as  much  as  to  say,  "  There,  don't  you  do  that  again." 
The  rooster  will  in  the  same  way  separate  two  hens 
when  they  are  fighting.  On  the  surface  this  seems 
like  a  very  human  act,  but  can  we  say  that  it  is  pun- 
ishment or  discipline  in  the  human  sense,  as  having 
for  its  aim  a  betterment  of  the  manners  of  the  kit- 
tens or  of  the  chickens  ?  The  cat  aims  to  get  rid  of 
an  annoyance,  and  the  rooster  and  the  mother  hen 
interfere  to  prevent  an  injury  to  members  of  their 
family;  they  exhibit  the  paternal  and  maternal  in- 
stinct of  protection.  More  than  that  would  imply 
ethical  considerations,  of  which  the  lower  animals  are 
not  capable.  The  act  of  the  baboon,  mentioned  by 
Darwin,  I  believe,  that  examined  the  paws  of  the  cat 
that  had  scratched  it,  and  then  deliberately  bit  ojff 

65 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  nails,  belongs  lo  a  different  and  to  a  higher  order 
of  conduct. 

A  complete  statement  of  the  factors  that  shape 
the  lives  of  the  lower  orders  would  include  three 
terms  —  instinct,  imitation  (though,  doubtless,  this 
is  instinctive),  and  experience.  Instinct  is,  of  course, 
the  main  factor,  and  by  this  term  we  mean  that 
which  prompts  an  animal  or  a  man  to  act  spon- 
taneously, without  instruction  or  experience.  All 
creatures  are  imitative,  and  man  himself  not  the 
least  so.  I  had  a  visit  the  other  day  from  a  woman 
who  had  spent  the  last  two  years  in  London,  and 
her  speech  betrayed  the  fact;  she  had  quite  uncon- 
sciously caught  certain  of  the  English  mannerisms  of 
speech.  A  few  years  in  the  South  will  give  the  New 
Englander  the  Southern  accent,  and  vice  versa.  The 
young  are,  of  course,  more  imitative  than  the  old. 
Children  imitate  their  parents;  the  young  writer 
imitates  his  favorite  author. 

Animals  of  different  species  closely  associated 
will  imitate  each  other.  A  lady  writes  me  that  she 
has  a  rabbit  that  lives  in  a  cage  with  a  monkey,  and 
that  it  has  caught  many  of  the  monkey's  ways.  I 
can  well  believe  it.  Dogs  reared  with  cats  have  been 
known  to  acquire  the  cat  habit  of  licking  the  paws 
and  then  washing  the  ears  and  face.  Wolves  reared 
with  dogs  learn  to  bark,  and  who  has  not  seen  a  dog 
draw  its  face  as  if  trying  to  laugh  as  its  master  does  ? 
When  a  cat  has  been  taught  to  sit  up  for  its  food, 

66 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

its  kittens  have  been  known  to  imitate  the  mother. 
Darwin  tells  of  a  cat  that  used  to  put  its  paw  into  the 
mouth  of  a  narrow  milk- jug  and  then  lick  it  off,  and 
that  its  kittens  soon  learned  the  same  trick.  In  all 
such  cases,  hasty  observers  say  the  mother  taught  its 
young.  Certainly  the  young  learned,  but  there  was 
no  effort  to  teach  on  the  part  of  the  parent.  Uncon- 
scious imitation  did  it  all.  Our  "  Modern  School  of 
Nature  Study  "  would  say  that  the  old  sow  teaches 
her  pigs  to  root  when  they  follow  her  afield,  rooting 
in  their  Httle  ways  as  she  does.  But  would  she  not 
root  if  she  had  no  pigs,  and  would  not  the  pigs  root  if 
they  had  no  mother  ?  All  acts  necessary  to  an  ani- 
mal's life  and  to  the  continuance  of  the  species  are 
instinctive;  the  creature  does  not  have  to  be  taught 
them,  nor  are  they  acquired  by  imitation.  The  bird 
does  not  have  to  be  taught  to  build  its  nest  or  to  fly, 
nor  the  beaver  to  build  its  dam  or  its  house,  nor  the 
otter  or  the  seal  to  swim,  nor  the  young  of  mammals 
to  suckle,  nor  the  spider  to  spin  its  web,  nor  the  grub 
to  weave  its  cocoon.  Nature  does  not  trust  these 
things  to  chance ;  they  are  too  vital.  The  things  that 
an  animal  acquires  by  imitation  are  of  secondary  im- 
portance in  its  life.  As  soon  as  the  calf,  or  the  lamb, 
or  the  colt  can  get  upon  its  feet,  its  first  impulse  is  to 
find  the  udder  of  its  dam.  It  requires  no  instruction 
or  experience  to  take  this  important  step. 

How  far  the  different  species  of  song-birds  acquire 
each  their  peculiar  songs  by  imitation  is  a  question 

67 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

that  has  not  yet  been  fully  settled.  That  imitation 
has  much  to  do  with  it  admits  of  little  doubt.  The 
song  of  a  bird  is  of  secondary  importance  in  its  life. 
Birds  reared  in  captivity,  where  they  have  never 
heard  the  songs  of  their  kind,  sing  at  the  proper  age, 
but  not  always  the  songs  of  their  parents.  Mr.  Scott 
of  Princeton  proved  this  with  his  orioles.  They  sang 
at  the  proper  age,  but  not  the  regular  oriole  song. 
I  am  told  that  there  is  a  well-authenticated  case  of 
an  English  sparrow  brought  up  with  canaries  that 
learned  to  sing  like  a  canary.  "The  Hon.  Daines 
Barrington  placed  three  young  linnets  with  three 
different  foster-parents,  the  skylark,  the  woodlark, 
and  the  titlark  or  meadow-pipit,  and  each  adopted, 
through  imitation,  the  song  of  its  foster-parent."  I 
have  myself  heard  goldfinches  that  were  reared  in  a 
cage  sing  beautifully,  but  not  the  regular  goldfinch 
song;  it  was  clearly  the  song  of  a  finch,  but  of  what 
finch  I  could  not  have  told.  I  have  also  heard  a  robin 
that  sang  to  perfection  the  song  of  the  brown 
thrasher ;  it  had,  no  doubt,  caught  it  by  imitation. 
I  have  heard  another  robin  that  had  the  call  of  the 
quail  interpolated  into  its  own  proper  robin's  song. 
But  I  have  yet  to  hear  of  a  robin  building  a  nest  like 
a  brown  thrasher,  or  of  an  oriole  building  a  nest  like 
a  robin,  or  of  kingfishers  drilling  for  grubs  in  a  tree. 
The  hen  cannot  keep  out  of  the  water  the  ducks  she 
has  hatched,  nor  can  the  duck  coax  into  the  water 
the  chickens  she  has  hatched.  The  cowbird  hatched 

68 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

and  reared  by  the  sparrow,  or  the  warbler,  or  the 
vireo  does  not  sing  the  song  of  the  foster-parent. 
Why  ?  Did  its  parent  not  try  to  teach  it  ?  I  have  no 
evidence  that  young  birds  sing,  except  occasionally 
in  a  low,  tentative  kind  of  way,  till  they  return  the 
following  season,  and  then  birds  of  a  feather  flock 
together,  robins  staying  with  robins,  and  cowbirds 
with  cowbirds,  each  singing  the  song  of  its  species. 
The  songs  of  bobolinks  differ  in  different  localities, 
but  those  of  the  same  locality  always  sing  alike.  I 
once  had  a  caged  skylark  that  imitated  the  songs 
of  nearly  every  bird  in  my  neighborhood. 

Mr.  Leander  S.  Keyser,  author  of  "  Birds  of  the 
Rockies,"  relates  in  "Forest  and  Stream"  the  re- 
sults of  his  experiments  with  a  variety  of  birds  taken 
from  the  nest  while  very  young  and  reared  in  cap- 
tivity; among  them  meadowlarks,  red-winged  black- 
birds, brown  thrashers,  blue  jays,  wood  thrushes, 
catbirds,  flickers,  woodpeckers,  and  several  others. 
Did  they  receive  any  parental  instruction  ?  Not  a 
bit  of  it,  and  yet  at  the  proper  age  they  flew,  perched, 
called,  and  sang  like  their  wild  fellows  —  all  except 
the  robins  and  the  red-winged  blackbirds:  these 
did  not  sing  the  songs  of  their  species,  but  sang 
a  medley  made  up  of  curious  imitations  of  human 
and  other  sounds.  And  the  blue  jay  never  learned 
to  sing  "the  sweet  gurgling  roulade  of  the  wild 
jays,"  though  it  gave  the  blue  jay  call  correctly.  Mr. 
Keyser's  experiment  was  interesting  and  valuable, 

69 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

but  his  sagacity  fails  him  when  interpreting  the 
action  of  the  jay  in  roosting  in  an  exposed  place 
after  it  had  been  given  its  liberty.  He  thinks  this 
showed  how  little  instinct  can  be  relied  on,  and 
how  much  the  bird  needed  parental  instruction. 
Could  he  not  see  that  the  artificial  life  of  the  bird 
in  the  cage  had  demoraUzed  its  instincts,  and  that 
acquired  habits  had  supplanted  native  tendencies  ? 
The  bird  had  learned  to  be  unafraid  in  the  cage, 
and  why  should  it  be  afraid  out  of  the  cage  ?  This 
reminds  me  of  a  letter  from  a  correspondent :  he  had 
a  tame  crow  that  was  not  afraid  of  a  gun ;  therefore 
he  concluded  that  the  old  crows  must  instill  the  fear 
of  guns  into  their  young !  Why  should  the  crow  be 
afraid  of  a  gun,  if  it  had  learned  not  to  be  afraid 
of  the  gunner  ? 

I  have  seen  a  young  chickadee  fly  late  in  the  day 
from  the  nest  in  the  cavity  of  a  tree  straight  to  a 
pear-tree,  where  it  perched  close  to  the  trunk  and 
remained  unregarded  by  its  parents  till  next  morn- 
ing. But  no  doubt  its  parents  had  given  it  minute 
directions  before  it  left  the  nest  how  to  fly  and 
where  to  perch ! 

That  animals  learn  by  experience  in  a  limited  way 
is  very  certain.  Yet  that  old  birds  build  better  nests 
or  sing  better  than  young  ones  it  would  be  hard 
to  prove,  though  it  seems  reasonable  that  it  should 
be  so. 

Rarely  does  one  see  nests  of  the  same  species  of 

70 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

varying  degrees  of  excellence  —  that  is,  first  nests  in 
the  spring.  The  second  nest  of  any  species  is  likely 
to  be  a  more  hurried  and  incomplete  affair.  Some 
species  are  at  all  times  poor  nest-builders,  as  the 
cuckoos  and  the  pigeons.  Other  birds  are  good  nest- 
builders,  as  the  orioles,  the  thrushes,  the  finches, 
the  warblers,  the  hummingbirds,  and  one  never  finds 
an  inferior  specimen  of  the  nests  of  any  of  these 
birds.  There  is  probably  no  more  improvement  in 
this  respect  among  birds  than  there  is  among  insects. 

I  have  no  proof  that  wild  birds  improve  in  singing. 
One  does  not  hear  a  vireo,  or  a  finch,  or  a  thrush,  or 
a  warbler  that  is  noticeably  inferior  as  a  songster 
to  its  fellows;  their  songs  are  all  ahke,  except  in  the 
few  rare  cases  when  one  hears  a  master  songster 
among  its  kind;  but  whether  this  mastery  is  natural 
or  acquired,  who  shall  tell  ? 

What  birds  learn  about  migration,  if  anything, 
I  do  not  see  that  we  have  any  means  of  finding  out. 

It  has  been  observed  of  birds  reared  under  artificial 
conditions  that  the  young  males  practice  a  long  time 
before  they  sing  well.  That  this  is  true  of  wild  birds, 
there  is  no  proof.  What  birds  and  animals  learn  by 
experience  is  greater  cunning.  Does  not  even  an  old 
trout  know  more  about  hooks  than  a  young  one  ? 
Birds  of  any  kind  that  are  much  hunted  become 
wilder,  even  though  they  have  not  had  the  experience 
of  being  shot.  Ask  any  duck  or  grouse  or  quail 
hunter  if  this  is  not  so.    Our  ruffed  grouse  learns  to 

71 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

fly  with  a  corkscrew  motion  where  it  is  much  fired 
at  on  the  wing.  How  wary  and  cautious  the  fox 
becomes  in  regions  where  it  is  much  trapped  and 
hunted !  Even  the  woodchuck  becomes  very  wild  on 
the  farms  where  it  is  much  shot  at,  and  this  wildness 
extends  to  its  young.  In  his  "Wilderness  Hunter" 
President  Roosevelt  says  the  same  thing  of  the  big 
game  of  the  Rockies.  Antelope  and  deer  can  be 
lured  near  the  concealed  hunter  by  the  waving  of  a 
small  flag  till  they  are  shot  at  a  few  times.  Then  they 
see  through  the  trick.  "  The  burnt  child  fears  the 
fire."  Animals  profit  by  experience  in  this  way;  they 
learn  what  not  to  do.  In  the  accumulation  of  posi- 
tive knowledge,  so  far  as  we  know,  they  make  little 
or  no  progress.  Birds  and  beasts  will  adapt  them- 
selves more  or  less  to  their  environment,  but  plants 
and  trees  will  do  that,  too.  The  rats  in  Jamaica  have 
learned  to  nest  in  trees  to  escape  the  mongoose, 
but  this  is  only  the  triumph  of  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  The  mongoose  has  not  yet  learned  to 
cHmb  trees;  the  pressure  of  need  is  not  yet  great 
enough.  It  is  said  that  in  districts  subject  to  floods 
moor-hens  often  build  in  trees.  All  animals  will 
change  their  habits  under  pressure  of  necessity;  man 
changes  his  without  this  pressure.  The  Duke  of 
Argyll  saw  a  bald  eagle  seize  a  fish  in  the  stream  — 
an  unusual  proceeding;  but  the  eagle  was  doubtless 
very  hungry,  and  there  was  no  osprey  near  upon 
whom  to  levy  tribute. 

72- 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

Romanes  found  that  rats  would  get  certain  semi- 
liquid  foods  out  of  a  bottle  with  their  tails,  as  a  cat 
will  get  milk  out  of  a  jar  with  her  paw,  but  neither 
ever  progresses  so  far  as  to  use  any  sort  of  tool 
for  the  purpose,  or  to  tip  the  vessel  over.  Animals 
practice  concealment  to  secure  their  prey,  but  not 
deception,  as  man  does.  They  do  not  use  lures  or 
disguises,  or  traps  or  poison. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  Hmit  to  the  variety  and 
adaptiveness  of  nature  taken  as  a  whole,  but  each 
species  is  hedged  about  by  impassable  Hmitations. 
The  ouzel  is  akin  to  the  thrushes,  and  yet  it  lives 
along  and  in  the  water.  Does  it  ever  take  to  the 
fields  and  woods,  and  live  on  fruit  and  land-insects, 
and  nest  in  trees  like  other  thrushes  ?  So  "with  all 
birds  and  beasts.  They  vary  constantly,  but  not  in 
one  lifetime,  and  the  sum  of  these  variations,  accu- 
mulated through  natural  selection,  as  Darwin  has 
shown,  gives  rise,  in  the  course  of  long  periods  of 
time,  to  new  species. 

As  I  have  already  said,  domestic  animals  vary 
more  than  wild  ones.  Every  farmer  and  poultry- 
grower  knows  that  some  hens  are  better  with  chick- 
ens than  others  —  more  motherly,  more  careful  — 
and  rear  a  greater  number  of  their  brood.  The  same 
is  true  of  sows  with  pigs.  Some  sows  will  eat  their 
pigs,  and  wild  animals  in  cages  often  destroy  their 
young.  Some  ewes  will  not  own  their  lambs,  and 
occasionally  a  cow  will  not  own  her  calf.  (Such  cases 

73 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

show  perverted  or  demoralized  instinct.)  Similar 
to  these  are  the  strange  friendships  that  sometimes 
occur  among  the  domestic  animals,  as  that  of  a  sheep 
with  a  cow,  a  goose  with  a  horse,  or  a  hen  adopting 
kittens.  In  a  state  of  nature  these  curious  attach- 
ments probably  never  spring  up.  Instinct  is  likely  to 
be  more  or  less  demoralized  when  animal  Hfe  touches 
human  life. 

With  the  wild  creatures  we  sometimes  see  one 
instinct  overcoming  another,  as  when  fear  drives 
a  bird  to  desert  its  nest,  or  when  the  instinct  of  mi- 
gration leads  a  pair  of  swallows  to  desert  their 
unfledged  young. 

A  great  many  young  birds  come  to  grief  by  leaving 
the  nest  before  they  can  fly.  In  such  cases,  I  sup- 
pose, they  disobey  the  parental  instructions !  I  find  it 
easier  to  believe  that  instinct  is  at  fault,  or  that  one 
instinct  has  overcome  another;  something  has  dis- 
turbed or  alarmed  the  young  birds,  and  the  fear  of 
danger  has  led  them  to  attempt  flight  before  their 
wings  were  strong  enough.  Once,  when  I  was  climb- 
ing up  to  the  nest  of  a  broad-winged  hawk,  the 
young  took  fright  and  launched  out  in  the  air,  com- 
ing to  the  ground  only  a  few  rods  away. 

Instinct,  natural  prompting,  is  the  main  matter, 
after  all.  It  makes  up  at  least  nine  tenths  of  the 
lives  of  all  our  wild  neighbors.  How  much  has  fear 
had  to  do  in  shaping  their  lives  and  in  perpetuating 
them!    And  "fear  of  any  particular  enemy,"  says 

74 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

Darwin,  "  is  certainly  an  instinctive  quality."  It  has 
been  said  that  kittens  confined  in  a  box,  and  which 
have  never  known  a  dog,  will  spit  and  put  up  their 
backs  at  a  hand  that  has  just  stroked  a  dog,  —  even 
before  their  eyes  are  opened,  one  authority  says, 
but  this  I  doubt.  My  son's  tame  gray  squirrel  had 
never  seen  chestnuts,  nor  learned  about  them  in  the 
school  of  the  woods,  and  yet  when  he  was  offered 
some,  he  fairly  danced  with  excitement;  he  put  his 
paws  eagerly  around  them  and  drew  them  to  him, 
and  chattered,  and  looked  threateningly  at  all  about 
him.  Does  man  know  his  proper  food  in  the  same 
way?  The  child  has  only  the  instinct  to  eat,  and 
will  put  anything  into  its  mouth. 

How  the  instinctive  wildness  of  the  turkey  crops 
out  in  the  young!  Let  the  mother  turkey  while 
hovering  her  brood  give  the  danger-signal,  and  the 
young  will  run  from  under  her  and  hide  in  the  grass. 
Why  ?  To  give  her  a  chance  to  fly  and  decoy  away 
the  enemy.  I  think  young  chickens  will  do  the  same. 
Young  partridges  hatched  under  a  hen  run  away  at 
once.  Pheasants  in  England  reared  under  a  domes- 
tic fowl  are  as  wild  as  in  a  state  of  nature.  Some 
California  quail  hatched  under  a  bantam  hen  in  the 
Zoo  in  New  York  did  not  heed  the  calls  of  their 
foster-mother  at  all  the  first  week,  but  at  her  alarm- 
note  they  instantly  squatted,  showing  that  the  dan- 
ger-cry of  a  fowl  is  a  kind  of  universal  language  that 
all  species  understand.    One  may  prove  this  at  any 

75 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

time  by  arousing  the  fears  of  any  wild  bird :  how  all 
the  other  birds  catch  the  alarm!  Charles  St.  John 
says  that  in  Scotland  the  stag  you  are  stalking  is 
sure  to  be  put  to  flight  if  it  hears  the  alarm-cry  of 
the  cock-grouse.  You  see  it  is  more  important  that 
the  wild  creatures  should  understand  the  danger- 
signals  of  one  another  than  that  they  should  under- 
stand the  rest  of  their  language. 

To  what  extent  animals  reason,  or  show  any  glim- 
mering of  what  we  call  reason,  is  a  much-debated 
question  among  animal  psychologists,  and  I  shall 
have  more  to  say  upon  the  subject  later  on.  Dogs 
undoubtedly  show  gleams  of  reason,  and  other  ani- 
mals in  domestication,  such  as  the  elephant  and  the 
monkey.  One  does  not  often  feel  hke  questioning 
Darwin's  conclusions,  yet  the  incident  of  the  caged 
bear  which  he  quotes,  that  pawed  the  water  in  front 
of  its  cage  to  create  a  current  that  should  float  within 
its  reach  a  piece  of  bread  that  had  been  placed  there, 
does  not,  in  my  judgment,  show  any  reasoning  about 
the  laws  of  hydrostatics.  The  bear  would  doubtless 
have  pawed  a  cloth  in  the  same  way,  vaguely  seek- 
ing to  draw  the  bread  within  reach.  But  when  an 
elephant  blows  through  his  trunk  upon  the  ground 
beyond  an  object  which  he  wants,  but  which  is  be- 
yond his  reach,  so  that  the  rebounding  air  will  drive 
it  toward  him,  he  shows  something  very  much  hke 
reason. 

Instinct  is  a  kind  of  natural  reason,  —  reason 

76 


FACTORS  IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

that  acts  without  proof  or  experience.  The  principle 
of  Hfe  in  organic  nature  seeks  in  all  ways  to  express 
and  to  perpetuate  itself.  It  finds  many  degrees  of 
expression  and  fulfillment  in  the  vegetable  world ;  it 
finds  higher  degrees  of  expression  and  fulfillment  in 
the  animal  world,  reaching  its  highest  development 
in  man. 

That  the  animals,  except  those  that  have  been 
long  associated  with  man,  and  they  only  in  occa- 
sional gleams  and  hints,  are  capable  of  any  of  our 
complex  mental  processes,  that  they  are  capable  of 
an  act  of  reflection,  of  connecting  cause  and  effect, 
of  putting  this  and  that  together,  is  to  me  void  of 
proof.  Why,  there  are  yet  savage  tribes  in  which  the 
woman  is  regarded  as  the  sole  parent  of  the  child. 
When  the  mother  is  sick  at  childbirth,  the  father 
takes  to  his  bed  and  feigns  the  illness  he  does  not 
feel,  in  order  to  estabhsh  his  relationship  to  the  child. 
It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  the  males  of  any  spe- 
cies of  animals,  or  the  females  either,  are  guided 
or  influenced  in  their  actions  by  the  desire  for  off- 
spring, or  that  they  possess  anything  like  knowledge 
of  the  connection  between  their  love-making  and 
their  offspring.  This  knowledge  comes  of  reflection, 
and  reflection  the  lower  animals  are  not  capable  of. 
But  I  shall  have  more  to  say  upon  this  point  in  an- 
other chapter,  entitled  "  What  do  Animals  Know  ? " 
I  will  only  say  here  that  animals  are  almost  as  much 
under  the  dominion  of  absolute  nature,  or  what  we 

77 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

call  instinct,  innate  tendency,  habit  of  growth,  as 
are  the  plants  and  trees.  Their  lives  revolve  around 
three  wants  or  needs  —  the  want  of  food,  of  safety, 
and  of  offspring.  It  is  in  securing  these  ends  that 
all  their  wit  is  developed.  They  have  no  wants  out- 
side of  these  spheres,  as  man  has.  Their  social  wants 
and  their  love  of  beauty,  as  in  some  of  the  birds,  are 
secondary.  It  is  quite  certain  that  the  animals  that 
store  up  food  for  the  winter  do  not  take  any  thought 
of  the  future.  Nature  takes  thought  for  them  and 
gives  them  their  provident  instinct.  The  jay,  by  his 
propensity  to  carry  away  and  hide  things,  plants 
many  of  our  oak  and  chestnut  trees,  but  who  dares 
say  that  he  does  this  on  purpose,  any  more  than  that 
the  insects  cross-fertilize  the  flowers  on  purpose? 
Sheep  do  not  take  thought  of  the  wool  upon  their 
backs  that  is  to  protect  them  from  the  cold  of  win- 
ter, nor  does  the  fox  of  his  fur.  In  the  tropics  sheep 
cease  to  grow  wool  in  three  or  four  years. 

All  the  lower  animals,  so  far  as  I  know,  swim 
the  first  time  they  find  themselves  in  the  water. 
They  do  not  have  to  be  taught :  it  is  a  matter  of 
instinct.  It  is  what  we  should  expect  from  our 
knowledge  of  their  lives.  Not  so  with  man ;  he  must 
learn  to  swim  as  he  learns  so  many  other  things. 
The  stimulus  of  the  water  does  not  at  once  set  in 
motion  his  legs  and  arms  in  the  right  way,  as  it  does 
the  animal's  legs  ;  his  powers  of  reason  and  re- 
flection paralyze  him  —  his  brain  carries  him  down. 

78 


FACTORS   IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

Not  until  he  has  learned  to  resign  himself  to  the 
water  as  the  animal  does,  and  to  go  on  all  fours, 
can  he  swim.  As  soon  as  the  boy  ceases  to  struggle 
against  his  tendency  to  sink,  assumes  the  horizontal 
position,  and  strikes  out  as  the  animal  does,  with  but 
one  thought,  and  that  to  apply  his  powers  of  locomo- 
tion to  the  medium  about  him,  he  swims  as  a  matter 
of  course.  It  is  said  that  children  have  sometimes 
been  known  to  swim  when  thrown  into  the  water. 
Their  animal  instincts  were  not  thwarted  by  their 
powers  of  reflection.  Doubtless  this  never  happened 
to  a  grown  person.  Moreover,  is  it  not  probable  that 
the  specific  gravity  of  the  hairless  human  body 
is  greater  than  that  of  the  hair-covered  animal,  and 
that  it  sinks,  while  that  of  the  cat  or  dog  floats  ? 
This,  with  the  erect  position  of  man,  makes  swim- 
ming with  him  an  art  that  must  be  acquired. 

There  is  no  better  illustration  of  the  action  of 
instinct  as  opposed  to  conscious  intelligence  than 
is  afforded  by  the  parasitic  birds,  —  the  cuckoo  in 
Europe  and  the  cowbird  in  this  country,  —  birds  that 
lay  their  eggs  in  the  nests  of  other  birds.  Darwin 
speculates  as  to  how  this  instinct  came  about,  but 
whatever  may  have  been  its  genesis,  it  is  now  a  fixed 
habit  among  these  birds.  Moreover,  the  instinct  of 
the  blind  young  ahen,  a  day  or  two  after  it  is  hatched, 
to  throw  or  crowd  its  foster-brothers  out  of  the  nest 
is  a  strange  and  anomalous  act,  and  is  as  untaught 
and  unreasoned  as  anything  in  vegetable  Hfe.  But 

79 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

when  our  yellow  warbler,  finding  this  strange  egg  of 
the  cowbird  in  her  nest,  proceeds  to  bury  it  by  put- 
ting another  bottom  in  the  nest  and  carrying  up  the 
sides  to  correspond,  she  shows  something  very  much 
like  sense  and  judgment,  though  of  a  clumsy  kind. 
How  much  simpler  and  easier  it  would  be  to  throw 
out  the  strange  egg !  I  have  known  the  cowbird  her- 
self to  carry  an  egg  from  a  nest  in  which  she  wished 
to  deposit  one  of  her  own.  Again,  how  stupid  and 
ludicrous  it  seems  on  the  part  of  the  mother  spar- 
row, or  warbler,  or  vireo,  when  she  goes  about  toiling 
desperately  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  her  big  clam- 
orous bantling  of  a  cowbird,  never  suspecting  that 
she  has  been  imposed  upon! 

Of  course  the  line  that  divides  man  from  the  lower 
orders  is  not  a  straight  line.  It  has  many  breaks  and 
curves  and  deep  indentations.  The  man-like  apes, 
as  it  were,  mark  where  the  line  rises  up  into  the 
domain  of  man.  Furthermore,  the  elephant  and  the 
dog,  especially  as  we  know  them  in  domestication, 
encroach  upon  man's  territory. 

Men  are  born  with  aptitudes  for  different  things, 
but  the  art  and  the  science  of  them  all  they  have  to 
learn;  proficiency  comes  with  practice.  Man  must 
learn  to  spin  his  web,  to  build  his  house,  to  sing  his 
song,  to  know  his  food,  to  sail  his  craft,  to  find  his  way 
—  things  that  the  animals  know  "  from  the  jump." 
The  animal  inherits  its  knowledge  and  its  skill :  man 
must  acquire  his  by  individual  effort ;  all  he  inherits 

80 


FACTORS   IN  ANIMAL   LIFE 

is  capacity  in  varying  degrees  for  these  things.  The 
animal  does  rational  things  without  an  exercise  of 
reason.  It  is  intelligent  as  nature  is  intelligent.  It 
does  not  know  that  it  knows,  or  how  it  knows,  while 
man  does.  Man's  knowledge  is  the  light  of  his  mind 
that  shines  on  many  and  widely  different  objects, 
while  the  knowledge  of  animals  cannot  be  sym- 
bohzed  by  the  term  "  light  "  at  all.  The  animal  acts 
blindly  so  far  as  any  conscious  individual  illumi- 
nation or  act  of  judgment  is  concerned.  It  does  the 
thing  unwittingly,  because  it  must.  Confront  it  with 
a  new^  condition,  and  it  has  no  resources  to  meet 
that  condition.  The  animal  knows  what  necessity 
taught  its  progenitors,  and  it  knows  that  only  as  a 
spontaneous  impulse  to  do  certain  things. 

Instinct,  I  say,  is  a  great  matter,  and  often  shames 
reason.  It  adapts  means  to  an  end,  it  makes  few  or 
no  mistakes,  it  takes  note  of  times  and  seasons,  it 
delves,  it  bores,  it  spins,  it  weaves,  it  sews,  it  builds, 
it  makes  paper,  it  constructs  a  shelter,  it  navigates 
the  air  and  the  water,  it  is  provident  and  thrifty, 
it  knows  its  enemies,  it  outwits  its  foes,  it  crosses 
oceans  and  continents  without  compass,  it  foreshad- 
ows nearly  all  the  arts  and  trades  and  occupations 
of  mankind,  it  is  skilled  without  practice,  and  wise 
without  experience.  How  it  arose,  what  its  genesis 
was,  who  can  tell  ?  Probably  natural  selection  has 
been  the  chief  agent  in  its  development.  If  natural 
selection  has  developed  and  sharpened  the  claws  of 

81 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  cat  and  the  scent  of  the  fox,  why  should  it  not 
develop  and  sharpen  their  wits  also  ?  The  remote 
ancestors  of  the  fox  or  of  the  crow  were  doubtless  less 
shrewd  and  cunning  than  the  crows  and  the  foxes  of 
to-day.  The  instinctive  intelligence  of  an  animal  of 
our  time  is  the  sum  of  the  variations  toward  greater 
intelligence  of  all  its  ancestors.  What  man  stores  in 
language  and  in  books  —  the  accumulated  results 
of  experience  —  the  animals  seem  to  have  stored  in 
instinct.  As  Darwin  says,  a  man  cannot,  on  his  first 
trial,  make  a  stone  hatchet  or  a  canoe  through  his 
power  of  imitation.  "  He  has  to  learn  his  work  by 
practice;  a  beaver,  on  the  other  hand,  can  make  its 
dam  or  canal,  and  a  bird  its  nest,  as  well  or  nearly 
as  well,  and  a  spider  its  wonderful  web  quite  as 
well,  the  first  time  it  tries  as  when  old  and  expe- 
rienced." 

An  animal  shows  intelligence,  as  distinct  from 
instinct,  when  it  takes  advantage  of  any  circum- 
stance that  arises  at  the  moment,  when  it  finds  new 
ways,  whether  better  or  not,  as  when  certain  birds 
desert  their  old  nesting-sites,  and  take  up  with  new 
ones  afforded  by  man.  This  act,  at  least,  shows 
power  of  choice.  The  birds  and  beasts  all  quickly 
avail  themselves  of  any  new  source  of  food  supply. 
Their  wits  are  probably  more  keen  and  active  here 
than  in  any  other  direction.  It  is  said  that  in  Okla- 
homa the  coyotes  have  learned  to  tell  ripe  water- 
melons from  unripe  ones  by  scratching  upon  them. 

82 


FACTORS   IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

If  they  have  not,  they  probably  will.  Eating  is  the 
one  thing  that  engrosses  the  attention  of  all  crea- 
tures, and  the  procuring  of  food  has  been  a  great 
means  of  education  to  all. 

I  notice  that  certain  of  the  wood-folk  —  mice  and 
squirrels  and  birds  —  eat  mushrooms.  If  I  would 
eat  them,  I  must  learn  how  to  distinguish  the  edible 
from  the  poisonous  ones.  I  have  no  special  sense  to 
guide  me  in  the  matter,  as  doubtless  the  squirrels 
have.  Their  instinct  is  sure  where  my  reason  fails. 
It  would  be  very  interesting  to  know  if  they  ever 
make  a  mistake  in  this  matter.  Domestic  animals 
sometimes  make  mistakes  as  to  their  food  because 
their  instinct  has  been  tampered  with  and  is  by 
no  means  as  sure  as  that  of  the  wild  creatures.  It 
is  said  that  sheep  will  occasionally  eat  laurel  and 
St.  John's-wort,  which  are  poisonous  to  them.  In  the 
far  West  I  was  told  that  the  horses  sometimes  eat  a 
weed  called  the  loco-weed  that  makes  them  crazy. 
I  have  since  learned  that  the  buffaloes  and  cattle  with 
a  strain  of  the  buffalo  blood  never  eat  this  weed. 

The  imitation  among  the  lower  animals  to  which 
I  have  referred  is  in  no  sense  akin  to  teaching.  The 
boy  does  not  learn  arithmetic  by  imitation.  To  teach 
is  to  bring  one  mind  to  act  upon  another  mind ;  it  is 
the  result  of  a  conscious  effort  on  the  part  of  both 
teacher  and  pupil.  The  child,  says  Darwin,  has  an 
instinctive  tendency  to  speak,  but  not  to  brew,  or 
bake,  or  write.    The  child  comes  to  speak  by  imita- 

83 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

tion,  as  does  the  parrot,  and  then  learns  the  meaning 
of  words,  as  the  parrot  does  not. 

I  am  convinced  there  is  nothing  in  the  notion  that 
animals  consciously  teach  their  young.  Is  it  prob- 
able that  a  mere  animal  reflects  upon  the  future  any 
more  than  it  does  upon  the  past  ?  Is  it  solicitous 
about  the  future  well-being  of  its  offspring  any  more 
than  it  is  curious  about  its  ancestry  ?  Persons  who 
think  they  see  the  lower  animals  training  their  young 
consciously  or  unconsciously  supply  something  to 
their  observations ;  they  read  their  own  thoughts  or 
preconceptions  into  what  they  see.  Yet  so  trained  a 
naturaUst  and  experienced  a  hunter  as  President 
Roosevelt  differs  with  me  in  this  matter.  In  a  letter 
which  I  am  permitted  to  quote,  he  says :  — 

"I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  there  is  a 
large  amount  of  unconscious  teaching  by  wood-folk 
of  their  offspring.  In  unfrequented  places  I  have  had 
the  deer  watch  me  with  almost  as  much  indifference 
as  they  do  now  in  the  Yellowstone  Park.  In  fre- 
quented places,  where  they  are  hunted,  young  deer 
and  young  mountain  sheep,  on  the  other  hand,  — 
and  of  course  young  wolves,  bobcats,  and  the  like,  — 
are  exceedingly  wary  and  shy  when  the  sight  or  smell 
of  man  is  concerned.  Undoubtedly  this  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  from  their  earliest  moments  of  going  about 
they  learn  to  imitate  the  unflagging  watchfulness  of 
their  parents,  and  by  the  exercise  of  some  associative 
or  imitative  quality  they  grow  to  imitate  and  then  to 

84     . 


FACTORS   IN  ANIMAL  LIFE 

share  the  alarm  displayed  by  the  older  ones  at  the 
smell  or  presence  of  man.  A  young  deer  that  has 
never  seen  a  man  feels  no  instinctive  alarm  at  his 
presence,  or  at  least  very  little ;  but  it  will  undoubt- 
edly learn  to  associate  extreme  alarm  with  his  pre- 
sence from  merely  accompanying  its  mother,  if  the 
latter  feels  such  alarm.  I  should  not  regard  this  as 
schooHng  by  the  parent  any  more  than  I  should  so 
regard  the  instant  flight  of  twenty  antelope  who  had 
not  seen  a  hunter,  because  the  twenty-first  has  seen 
him  and  has  instantly  run.  Sometimes  a  deer  or  an 
antelope  will  deliberately  give  an  alarm-cry  at  sight 
of  something  strange.  This  cry  at  once  puts  every 
deer  or  antelope  on  the  alert ;  but  they  will  be  just  as 
much  on  the  alert  if  they  witness  nothing  but  an 
exhibition  of  fright  and  flight  on  the  part  of  the  flrst 
deer  or  antelope,  without  there  being  any  conscious 
effort  on  its  part  to  express  alarm. 

"Moreover,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  on  cer- 
tain occasions,  rare  though  they  may  be,  there  is  a 
conscious  effort  at  teaching.  I  have  myself  known 
of  one  setter  dog  which  would  thrash  its  puppy 
soundly  if  the  latter  carelessly  or  stupidly  flushed  a 
bird.  Something  similar  may  occur  in  the  wild  state 
among  such  intelligent  beasts  as  wolves  and  foxes. 
Indeed,  I  have  some  reason  to  believe  that  with  both 
of  these  animals  it  does  occur  —  that  is,  that  there 
is  conscious  as  well  as  unconscious  teaching  of  the 
young  in  such  matters  as  traps." 

85 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

Probably  the  President  and  I  differ  more  in  the 
meaning  we  attach  to  the  same  words  than  in  any- 
thing else.  In  a  subsequent  letter  he  says:  "  I  think 
the  chief  difference  between  you  and  me  in  the  mat- 
ter is  one  of  terminology.  When  I  speak  of  uncon- 
scious teaching,  I  really  mean  simply  acting  in  a 
manner  which  arouses  imitation." 

Imitation  is  no  doubt  the  key  to  the  whole  matter. 
The  animals  unconsciously  teach  their  young  by 
t-heir  example,  and  in  no  other  way.  But  I  must 
leave  the  discussion  of  this  subject  for  another 
chapter. 


VI 

ANIMAL   COMMUNICATION 

THE  notion  that  animals  consciously  train  and 
educate  their  young  has  been  held  only  tenta- 
tively by  European  writers  on  natural  history.  Dar- 
win does  not  seem  to  have  been  of  this  opinion  at 
all.  Wallace  shared  it  at  one  time  in  regard  to  the 
birds,  —  their  songs  and  nest-building,  —  but  aban- 
doned it  later,  and  fell  back  upon  instinct  or  in- 
herited habit.  Some  of  the  German  writers,  such 
as  Brehm,  Buchner,  and  the  Miillers,  seem  to  have 
held  to  the  notion  more  decidedly.  But  Professor 
Groos  had  not  yet  opened  their  eyes  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  play  of  animals.  The  writers  mentioned 
undoubtedly  read  the  instinctive  play  of  animals  as 
an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  parents  to  teach  their 
young. 

That  the  examples  of  the  parents  in  many  ways 
stimulate  the  imitative  instincts  of  the  young  is  quite 
certain,  but  that  the  parents  in  any  sense  aim  at 
instruction  is  an  idea  no  longer  held  by  writers  on 
animal  psychology. 

Of  course  it  all  depends  upon  what  we  mean  by 
teaching.  Do  we  mean  the  communication  of  know- 

87 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

ledge,  or  the  communication  of  emotion  ?  It  seems 
to  me  that  by  teaching  we  mean  the  former.  Man 
alone  communicates  knowledge;  the  lower  animals 
communicate  feeling  or  emotion.  Hence  their  com- 
munications always  refer  to  the  present,  never  to  the 
past  or  to  the  future. 

That  birds  and  beasts  do  communicate  with  each 
other,  who  can  doubt  ?  But  that  they  impart  know- 
ledge, that  they  have  any  knowledge  to  impart,  in 
the  strict  meaning  of  the  word,  any  store  of  ideas 
or  mental  concepts  —  that  is  quite  another  matter. 
Teaching  implies  such  store  of  ideas  and  power  to 
impart  them.  The  subconscious  self  rules  in  the 
animal ;  the  conscious  self  rules  in  man,  and  the  con- 
scious self  alone  can  teach  or  communicate  know- 
ledge. It  seems  to  me  that  the  cases  of  the  deer  and 
the  antelope,  referred  to  by  President  Roosevelt  in 
the  letter  to  me  quoted  in  the  last  chapter,  show  the 
communication  of  emotion  only. 

Teaching  implies  reflection  and  judgment;  it 
implies  a  thought  of,  and  solicitude  for,  the  future. 
"  The  young  will  need  this  knowledge,"  says  the  hu- 
man parent,  "  and  so  we  will  impart  it  to  them  now." 
But  the  animal  parent  has  consciously  no  knowledge 
to  imparts  only  fear  or  suspicion.  One  may  aflSrm 
almost  an3i:hing  of  trained  dogs  and  of  dogs  gener- 
ally. I  can  well  believe  that  the  setter  bitch  spoken  of 
by  the  President  punished  her  pup  when  it  flushed  a 
bird,  —  she  had  been  punished  herself  for  the  same 

88 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

offense,  —  but  that  the  act  was  expressive  of  any- 
thing more  than  her  present  anger,  that  she  was  in 
any  sense  trying  to  train  and  instruct  her  pup,  there 
is  no  proof. 

But  with  animals  that  have  not  been  to  school  to 
man,  all  ideas  of  teaching  must  be  rudimentary 
indeed.  How  could  a  fox  or  a  wolf  instruct  its  young 
in  such  matters  as  traps  ?  Only  in  the  presence  of 
the  trap,  certainly;  and  then  the  fear  of  the  trap 
would  be  communicated  to  the  young  through 
natural  instinct.  Fear,  hke  joy  or  curiosity,  is  con- 
tagious among  beasts  and  birds,  as  it  is  among  men; 
the  young  fox  or  wolf  would  instantly  share  the  emo- 
tion of  its  parent  in  the  presence  of  a  trap.  It  is  very 
important  to  the  wild  creatures  that  they  have  a 
quick  apprehension  of  danger,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  they  have.  One  wild  and  suspicious  duck  in  a 
flock  will  often  defeat  the  best  laid  plans  of  the  duck- 
hunter.  Its  suspicions  are  quickly  communicated  to 
all  its  fellows:  not  through  any  conscious  effort  on 
its  part  to  do  so,  but  through  the  law  of  natural  con- 
tagion above  referred  to.  Where  any  bird  or  beast 
is  much  hunted,  fear  seems  to  be  in  the  air,  and  their 
fellows  come  to  be  conscious  of  the  danger  which 
they  have  not  experienced. 

What  an  animal  lacks  in  wdt  it  makes  up  in  cau- 
tion. Fear  is  a  good  thing  for  the  wild  creatures  to 
have  in  superabundance.  It  often  saves  them  from 
real  danger.    But  how  undiscriminating  it  is!    It  is 

89 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

said  that  an  iron  hoop  or  wagon-tire  placed  around  a 
setting  hen  in  the  woods  will  protect  her  from  the 
foxes. 

Animals  are  afraid  on  general  principles.  Any- 
thing new  and  strange  excites  their  suspicions.  In 
a  herd  of  animals,  cattle,  or  horses,  fear  quickly  be- 
comes a  panic  and  rages  like  a  conflagration.  Cattle- 
men in  the  West  found  that  any  little  thing  at  night 
might  kindle  the  spark  in  their  herds  and  sweep  the 
whole  mass  away  in  a  furious  stampede.  Each  ani- 
mal excites  every  other,  and  the  multiplied  fear  of 
the  herd  is  something  terrible.  Panics  among  men 
are  not  much  different. 

In  a  discussion  like  the  present  one,  let  us  use 
words  in  their  strict  logical  sense,  if  possible.  Most 
of  the  current  misconceptions  in  natural  history,  as 
in  other  matters,  arise  from  a  loose  and  careless  use 
of  words.  One  says  teach  and  train  and  instruct, 
when  the  facts  point  to  instinctive  imitation  or 
unconscious  communication. 

That  the  young  of  all  kinds  thrive  better  and 
develop  more  rapidly  under  the  care  of  their  parents 
than  when  deprived  of  that  care  is  obvious  enough. 
It  would  be  strange  if  it  were  not  so.  Nothing  can 
quite  fill  the  place  of  the  mother  with  either  man  or 
bird  or  beast.  The  mother  provides  and  protects. 
The  young  quickly  learn  of  her  through  the  natural 
instinct  of  imitation.  They  share  her  fears,  they  fol- 
low in  her  footsteps,  they  look  to  her  for  protection ; 

90 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

it  is  the  order  of  nature.  They  are  not  trained  in  the 
way  they  should  go,  as  a  child  is  by  its  human  par- 
ents —  they  are  not  trained  at  all ;  but  their  natu- 
ral instincts  doubtless  act  more  promptly  and  surely 
with  the  mother  than  without  her.  That  a  young 
kingfisher  or  a  young  osprey  would,  in  due  time, 
dive  for  fish,  or  a  young  marsh  hawk  catch  mice 
and  birds,  or  a  young  fox  or  wolf  or  coon  hunt  for 
its  proper  prey  without  the  parental  example,  ad- 
mits of  no  doubt  at  all;  but  they  would  each  prob- 
ably do  this  thing  earlier  and  better  in  the  order  of 
nature  than  if  that  order  were  interfered  with. 

The  other  day  I  saw  a  yellow-bellied  woodpecker 
alight  upon  a  decaying  beech  and  proceed  to  drill 
for  a  grub.  Two  of  its  fully  grown  young  followed 
it  and,  alighting  near,  sidled  up  to  where  the  parent 
was  drilKng.  A  hasty  observer  would  say  that  the 
parent  was  giving  its  young  a  lesson  in  grub-hunt- 
ing, but  I  read  the  incident  differently.  The  parent 
bird  had  no  thought  of  its  young.  It  made  passes  at 
them  when  they  came  too  near,  and  drove  them  away. 
Presently  it  left  the  tree,  whereupon  one  of  the  young 
examined  the  hole  its  parent  had  made  and  drilled  a 
little  on  its  own  account.  A  parental  example  hke 
this  may  stimulate  the  young  to  hunt  for  grubs  ear- 
lier than  they  would  otherwise  do,  but  this  is  merely 
conjecture.  There  is  no  proof  of  it,  nor  can  there 
be  any. 

The  mother  bird  or  beast  does  not  have  to  be 

91 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

instructed  in  her  maternal  duties :  they  are  instinc- 
tive with  her;  it  is  of  vital  importance  to  the  contin- 
uance of  the  species  that  they  should  be.  If  it  were 
a  matter  of  instruction  or  acquired  knowledge,  how 
precarious  it  would  be ! 

The  idea  of  teaching  is  an  advanced  idea,  and 
can  come  only  to  a  being  that  is  capable  of  returning 
upon  itself  in  thought,  and  that  can  form  abstract 
conceptions  —  conceptions  that  float  free,  so  to 
speak,  dissociated  from  particular  concrete  objects. 

If  a  fox,  or  a  wolf,  for  instance,  were  capable  of 
reflection  and  of  dwelling  upon  the  future  and  upon 
the  past,  it  might  feel  the  need  of  instructing  its 
young  in  the  matter  of  traps  and  hounds,  if  such  a 
thing  were  possible  without  language.  When  the 
cat  brings  her  kitten  a  live  mouse,  she  is  not  think- 
ing about  instructing  it  in  the  art  of  dealing  with 
mice,  but  is  intent  solely  upon  feeding  her  young. 
The  kitten  already  knows,  through  inheritance, 
about  mice.  So  when  the  hen  leads  her  brood  forth 
and  scratches  for  them,  she  has  but  one  purpose  — 
to  provide  them  with  food.  If  she  is  confined  to  the 
coop,  the  chickens  go  forth  and  soon  scratch  for 
themselves  and  snap  up  the  proper  insect  food. 

The  mother's  care  and  protection  count  for  much, 
but  they  do  not  take  the  place  of  inherited  instinct. 
It  has  been  found  that  newly  hatched  chickens,  when 
left  to  themselves,  do  not  know  the  difference  be- 
tween edible  and  non-edible  insects,  but  that  they 

92 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

soon  learn.  In  such  matters  the  mother  hen,  no 
doubt,  guides  them. 

A  writer  in  "  Forest  and  Stream, "  who  has  since 
pubKshed  a  book  about  his  "wild  friends,"  pushes 
this  notion  that  animals  train  their  young  so  far  that 
it  becomes  grotesque.  Here  are  some  of  the  things 
that  this  keen  observer  and  exposer  of  "  false  natural 
history  "  reports  that  he  has  seen  about  his  cabin  in 
the  woods :  He  has  seen  an  old  crow  that  hurriedly 
flew  away  from  his  cabin  door  on  his  sudden  appear- 
ance, return  and  beat  its  young  because  they  did  not 
follow  quickly  enough.  He  has  seen  a  male  chewink, 
while  its  mate  was  rearing  a  second  brood,  take  the 
first  brood  and  lead  them  away  to  a  bird-resort  (he 
probably  meant  to  say  to  a  bird-nursery  or  kinder- 
garten) ;  and  when  one  of  the  birds  wandered  back 
to  take  one  more  view  of  the  scenes  of  its  infancy,  he 
has  seen  the  father  bird  pounce  upon  it  and  give  it  a 
"severe  whipping  and  take  it  to  the  resort  again." 

He  has  seen  swallows  teach  their  young  to  fly  by 
gathering  them  upon  fences  and  telegraph  wires  and 
then,  at  intervals  (and  at  the  word  of  command,  I 
suppose),  launching  out  in  the  air  with  them,  and 
swooping  and  circling  about.  He  has  seen  a  song 
sparrow,  that  came  to  his  dooryard  for  fourteen 
years  (he  omitted  to  say  that  he  had  branded  him 
and  so  knew  his  bird),  teach  his  year-old  hoy  to  sing 
(the  itaUcs  are  mine).  This  hermit-inclined  sparrow 
wanted  to  "  desert  the  fields  for  a  life  in  the  woods," 

93 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

but  his  "  wife  would  not  consent."  Many  a  feather- 
less  biped  has  had  the  same  experience  with  his 
society-spoiled  wife.  The  puzzle  is,  how  did  this 
masterly  observer  know  that  this  state  of  affairs 
existed  between  this  couple  ?  Did  the  wife  tell  him, 
or  the  husband  ?  "  Hermit "  often  takes  his  visitors 
to  a  wood  thrushes'  singing-school,  where,  "  as  the 
birds  forget  their  lesson,  they  drop  out  one  by  one." 

He  has  seen  an  old  rooster  teaching  a  young 
rooster  to  crow!  At  first  the  old  rooster  crows 
mostly  in  the  morning,  but  later  in  the  season  he 
crows  throughout  the  day,  at  short  intervals,  to  show 
the  young  "the  proper  thing."  "Young  birds  re- 
moved out  of  hearing  will  not  learn  to  crow."  He 
hears  the  old  grouse  teaching  the  young  to  drum  in 
the  fall,  though  he  neglects  to  tell  us  that  he  has 
seen  the  young  in  attendance  upon  these  lessons. 
He  has  seen  a  mother  song  sparrow  helping  her  two- 
year-old  daughter  build  her  nest.  He  has  discov- 
ered that  the  cat  talks  to  her  kittens  with  her  ears : 
when  she  points  them  forward,  that  means  "yes;" 
when  she  points  them  backward, that  means  "no." 
Hence  she  can  tell  them  whether  the  wagon  they 
hear  approaching  is  the  butcher's  cart  or  not,  and 
thus  save  them  the  trouble  of  looking  out. 

And  so  on  through  a  long  Ust  of  wild  and  domes- 
tic creatures.  At  first  I  suspected  this  writer  was 
covertly  ridiculing  a  certain  other  extravagant  "  ob- 
server," but  a  careful  reading  of  his  letter  shows  him 

94 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

to  be  seriously  engaged  in  the  worthy  task  of  expos- 
ing "  false  natural  history." 

Now  the  singing  of  birds,  the  crowing  of  cocks, 
the  drumming  of  grouse,  are  secondary  sexual  char- 
acteristics. They  are  not  necessary  to  the  hves  of  the 
creatures,  and  are  probably  more  influenced  by  imi- 
tation than  are  the  more  important  instincts  of  self- 
preservation  and  reproduction.  Yet  the  testimony  is 
overwhelming  that  birds  will  sing  and  roosters  crow 
and  turkeys  gobble,  though  they  have  never  heard 
these  sounds;  and,  no  doubt,  the  grouse  and  the 
woodpeckers  drum  from  promptings  of  the  same 
sexual  instinct. 

I  do  not  wish  to  accuse  "  Hermit "  of  mllfully  per- 
verting the  facts  of  natural  history.  He  is  one  of 
those  persons  who  read  their  own  fancies  into  what- 
ever they  look  upon.  He  is  incapable  of  disinterested 
observation,  which  means  he  is  incapable  of  observa- 
tion at  all  in  the  true  sense.  There  are  no  animals 
that  signal  to  each  other  with  their  ears.  The  move- 
ments of  the  ears  follow  the  movements  of  the  eye. 
When  an  animal's  attention  is  directed  to  any  ob- 
ject or  sound,  its  ears  point  forward ;  when  its  atten- 
tion is  relaxed,  the  ears  fall.  But  with  the  cat  tribe 
the  ears  are  habitually  erect,  as  those  of  the  horse 
are  usually  relaxed.  They  depress  them  and  revert 
them,  as  do  many  other  animals,  when  angered  or 
afraid. 

Certain  things  in  animal  life  lead  me  to  suspect 

95 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

that  animals  have  some  means  of  communication 
with  one  another,  especially  the  gregarious  animals, 
that  is  quite  independent  of  what  we  mean  by  lan- 
guage. It  is  like  an  interchange  or  blending  of  sub- 
conscious states,  and  may  be  analogous  to  telepathy 
among  human  beings.  Observe  what  a  unit  a  flock 
of  birds  becomes  when  performing  their  evolutions 
in  the  air.  They  are  not  many,  but  one,  turning  and 
flashing  in  the  sun  with  a  unity  and  a  precision  that 
it  would  be  hard  to  imitate.  One  may  see  a  flock 
of  shore-birds  that  behave  as  one  body:  now  they 
turn  to  the  sun  a  sheet  of  silver;  then,  as  their  dark 
backs  are  presented  to  the  beholder,  they  almost  dis- 
appear against  the  shore  or  the  clouds.  It  would 
seem  as  if  they  shared  in  a  communal  mind  or  spirit, 
and  that  what  one  felt  they  all  felt  at  the  same 
instant. 

In  Florida  I  many  times  saw  large  schools  of  mul- 
lets fretting  and  breaking  the  surface  of  the  water 
with  what  seemed  to  be  the  tips  of  their  tails.  A 
large  area  would  be  agitated  and  rippled  by  the  backs 
or  tails  of  a  host  of  fishes.  Then  suddenly,  while  I 
looked,  there  would  be  one  splash  and  every  fish 
would  dive.  It  was  a  multitude,  again,  acting  as  one 
body.  Hundreds,  thousands  of  tails  slapped  the 
water  at  the  same  instant  and  were  gone. 

When  the  passenger  pigeons  were  numbered  by 
milhons,  the  enormous  clans  used  to  migrate  from 
one  part  of  the  continent  to  another.   I  saw  the  last 

96 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

flight  of  them  up  the  Hudson  River  valley  in  the 
spring  of  1875.  All  day  they  streamed  across  the  sky. 
One  purpose  seemed  to  animate  every  flock  and 
every  bird.  It  was  as  if  all  had  orders  to  move  to  the 
same  point.  The  pigeons  came  only  when  there  was 
beech-mast  in  the  woods.  How  did  they  know  we 
had  had  a  beech-nut  year?  It  is  true  that  a  few 
straggling  bands  were  usually  seen  some  days  in 
advance  of  the  blue  myriads :  were  these  the  scouts, 
and  did  they  return  with  the  news  of  the  beech-nuts  ? 
If  so,  how  did  they  communicate  the  intelligence 
and  set  the  whole  mighty  army  in  motion  ? 

The  migrations  among  the  four-footed  animals 
that  sometimes  occur  over  a  large  part  of  the  coun- 
try —  among  the  rats,  the  gray  squirrels,  the  rein- 
deer of  the  north  —  seem  to  be  of  a  similar  char- 
acter. How  does  every  individual  come  to  share  in 
the  common  purpose  ?  An  army  of  men  attempting 
to  move  without  leaders  and  without  a  written  or 
spoken  language  becomes  a  disorganized  mob.  Not 
so  the  animals.  There  seems  to  be  a  community  of 
mind  among  them  in  a  sense  that  there  is  not  among 
men.  The  pressure  of  great  danger  seems  to  develop 
in  a  degree  this  community  of  mind  and  feeling 
among  men.  Under  strong  excitement  we  revert 
more  or  less  to  the  animal  state,  and  are  ruled  by 
instinct.  It  may  well  be  that  telepathy  —  the  power 
to  project  one's  mental  or  emotional  state  so  as  to 
impress  a  friend  at  a  distance  —  is  a  power  which  we 

97 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

have  carried  over  from  our  remote  animal  ancestors. 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  sensi- 
tiveness of  birds  and  quadrupeds  to  the  condition 
of  one  another,  their  sense  of  a  common  danger,  of 
food  supphes,  of  the  direction  of  home  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, point  to  the  possession  of  a  power  which 
is  only  rudimentary  in  us. 

Some  observers  explain  these  things  on  the  theory 
that  the  flocks  of  birds  have  leaders,  and  that  their 
surprising  evolutions  are  guided  by  calls  or  signals 
from  these  leaders,  too  quick  or  too  fine  for  our  eyes 
or  ears  to  catch.  I  suppose  they  would  explain  the 
movements  of  the  schools  of  fish  and  the  simulta- 
neous movements  of  a  large  number  of  land  animals 
on  the  same  theory.  I  cannot  accept  this  explana- 
tion. It  is  harder  for  me  to  beheve  that  a  flock  of 
birds  has  a  code  of  calls  or  signals  for  all  its  evolu- 
tions— now  right,  now  left,  now  mount,  now  swoop 
—  which  each  individual  understands  on  the  instant, 
or  that  the  hosts  of  the  wild  pigeons  had  their  cap- 
tains and  signals,  than  to  believe  that  out  of  the  flock- 
ing instinct  there  has  grown  some  other  instinct  or 
faculty,  less  understood,  but  equally  potent,  that  puts 
all  the  members  of  a  flock  in  such  complete  rapport 
with  one  another  that  the  purpose  and  the  desire  of 
one  become  the  purpose  and  the  desire  of  all.  There 
is  nothing  in  this  state  of  things  analogous  to  a  mih- 
tary  organization.  The  relation  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  flock  is  rather  that  of  creatures  sharing 

98 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

spontaneously  the  same  subconscious  or  psychic 
state,  and  acted  upon  by  the  same  hidden  influence, 
in  a  way  and  to  a  degree  that  never  occur  among 
men. 

The  faculty  or  power  by  which  animals  find  the 
way  home  over  or  across  long  stretches  of  country 
is  quite  as  mysterious  and  incomprehensible  to  us 
as  the  spirit  of  the  flock  to  which  I  refer.  A  hive 
of  bees  evidently  has  a  collective  purpose  and  plan 
that  does  not  emanate  from  any  single  individual 
or  group  of  individuals,  and  which  is  understood 
by  all  without  outward  communication. 

Is  there  anything  which,  without  great  violence 
to  language,  may  be  called  a  school  of  the  woods  ? 
In  the  sense  in  which  a  playground  is  a  school  —  a 
playground  without  rules  or  methods  or  a  director 
—  there  is  a  school  of  the  woods.  It  is  an  unkept,  an 
unconscious  school  or  gymnasium,  and  is  entirely 
instinctive.  In  play  the  young  of  all  animals,  no 
doubt,  get  a  certain  amount  of  training  and  disci- 
phning  that  helps  fit  them  for  their  future  careers ; 
but  this  school  is  not  presided  over  or  directed  by 
parents,  though  they  sometimes  take  part  in  it.  It  is 
spontaneous  and  haphazard,  without  rule  or  system ; 
but  is,  in  every  case,  along  the  line  of  the  future 
struggle  for  life  of  the  particular  bird  or  animal. 
A  young  marsh  hawk  which  we  reared  used  to  play 
at  striking  leaves  or  bits  of  bark  with  its  talons; 
kittens  play  with  a  ball,  or  a  cob,  or  a  stick,  as  if 

99 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

it  were  a  mouse;  dogs  race  and  wrestle  with  one 
another  as  in  the  chase ;  ducks  dive  and  sport  in  the 
water;  doves  circle  and  dive  in  the  air  as  if  es- 
caping from  a  hawk;  birds  pursue  and  dodge  one 
another  in  the  same  way;  bears  wrestle  and  box; 
chickens  have  mimic  battles;  colts  run  and  leap; 
fawns  probably  do  the  same  thing;  squirrels  play 
something  like  a  game  of  tag  in  the  trees ;  lambs  butt 
one  another  and  skip  about  the  rocks;  and  so  on. 

In  fact,  nearly  all  play,  including  much  of  that  of 
man,  takes  the  form  of  mock  battle,  and  is  to  that 
extent  an  education  for  the  future.  Among  the  car- 
nivora  it  takes  also  the  form  of  the  chase.  Its  spring 
and  motive  are,  of  course,  pleasure,  and  not  educa- 
tion; and  herein  again  is  revealed  the  cunning  of 
nature  —  the  power  that  conceals  purposes  of  its 
own  in  our  most  thoughtless  acts.  The  cat  and  the 
kitten  play  with  the  Uve  mouse,  not  to  indulge  the 
sense  of  cruelty,  as  some  have  supposed,  but  to  in- 
dulge in  the  pleasure  of  the  chase  and  unconsciously 
to  practice  the  feat  of  capture.  The  cat  rarely  plays 
with  a  live  bird,  because  the  recapture  would  be  more 
difficult,  and  might  fail.  What  fisherman  would  not 
Hke  to  take  his  big  fish  over  and  over  again,  if  he 
could  be  sure  of  doing  it,  not  from  cruelty,  but  for 
the  pleasure  of  practicing  his  art  ?  For  further  light 
on  the  subject  of  the  significance  of  the  play  of  ani- 
mals, I  refer  the  reader  to  the  work  of  Professor 
Karl  Groos  called  "The  Play  of  Animals." 

100 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

One  of  my  critics  has  accused  me  of  measuring  all 
things  by  the  standard  of  my  httle  farm  —  of  think- 
ing that  what  is  not  true  of  animal  Hfe  there  is  not 
true  anywhere.  Unfortunately  my  farm  is  small  — 
hardly  a  score  of  acres  —  and  its  animal  hfe  very 
hmited.  I  have  never  seen  even  a  porcupine  upon  it ; 
but  I  have  a  hill  where  one  might  roll  down,  should 
one  ever  come  my  way  and  be  in  the  mood  for  that 
kind  of  play.^  I  have  a  few  possums,  a  woodchuck 
or  two,  an  occasional  skunk,  some  red  squirrels  and 
rabbits,  and  many  kinds  of  song-birds.  Foxes  oc- 
casionally cross  my  acres;  and  once,  at  least,  I  saw 
a  bald  eagle  devouring  a  fish  in  one  of  my  apple- 
trees.  Wild  ducks,  geese,  and  swans  in  spring  and 
fall  pass  across  the  sky  above  me.  Quail  and  grouse 
invade  my  premises,  and  of  crows  I  have,  at  least  in 
bird-nesting  time,  too  many. 

But  I  have  a  few  times  chmbed  over  my  pasture 
wall  and  wandered  into  distant  fields.  Once  upon 
a  time  I  was  a  traveler  in  Asia  for  the  space  of  two 
hours  —  an  experience  that  ought  to  have  yielded 
me  some  starthng  discoveries,  but  did  not.  Indeed, 
the  wider  I  have  traveled  and  observed  nature,  the 
more  I  am  convinced  that  the  wild  creatures  behave 
just  about  the  same  in  all  parts  of  the  country;  that 
is,  under  similar  conditions.  What  one  observes  truly 
about  bird  or  beast  upon  his  farm  of  ten  acres,  he 
will  not  have  to  unlearn,  travel  as  wide  or  as  far  as 

^  See  comment  on  the  story  here  alluded  to  on  page  244. 

101 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

he  will.  Where  the  animals  are  much  hunted,  they 
are  of  course  much  wilder  and  more  cunning  than 
where  they  are  not  hunted.  In  the  Yellowstone 
National  Park  we  found  the  elk,  deer,  and  mountain 
sheep  singularly  tame;  and  in  the  summer,  so  we 
were  told,  the  bears  board  at  the  big  hotels.  The 
wild  geese  and  ducks,  too,  were  tame ;  and  the  red- 
tailed  hawk  built  its  nest  in  a  large  dead  oak  that 
stood  quite  alone  near  the  side  of  the  road.  With 
us  the  same  hawk  hides  its  nest  in  a  tree  in  the  dense 
woods,  because  the  farmers  unwisely  hunt  and  de- 
stroy it.  But  the  cougars  and  coyotes  and  bobcats 
were  no  tamer  in  the  park  than  they  are  in  other 
places  where  they  are  hunted. 

Indeed,  if  I  had  elk  and  deer  and  caribou  and 
moose  and  bears  and  wildcats  and  beavers  and 
otters  and  porcupines  on  my  farm,  I  should  expect 
them  to  behave  just  as  they  do  in  other  parts  of  the 
country  under  hke  conditions :  they  would  be  tame 
and  docile  if  I  did  not  molest  them,  and  wild  and 
fierce  if  I  did.  They  would  do  nothing  out  of  charac- 
ter in  either  case. 

Your  natural  history  knowledge  of  the  East  will 
avail  you  in  the  West.  There  is  no  country,  says 
Emerson,  in  which  they  do  not  wash  the  pans  and 
spank  the  babies;  and  there  is  no  country  where  a 
dog  is  not  a  dog,  or  a  fox  a  fox,  or  where  a  hare  is 
ferocious,  or  a  wolf  lamblike.  The  porcupine  be- 
haves in  the  Rockies  just  as  he  does  in  the  Catskills; 

102 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

the  deer  and  the  moose  and  the  black  bear  and  the 
beaver  of  the  Pacific  slope  are  almost  identical  in 
their  habits  and  traits  with  those  of  the  Atlantic 
slope. 

In  my  observations  of  the  birds  of  the  far  West, 
I  went  wrong  in  my  reckoning  but  once :  the  West- 
ern meadowlark  has  a  new  song.  How  or  where  he 
got  it  is  a  mystery;  it  seems  to  be  in  some  way  the 
gift  of  those  great,  smooth,  flowery,  treeless,  dimpled 
hills.  But  the  swallow  was  familiar,  and  the  robin 
and  the  wren  and  the  highhole,  while  the  wood- 
chuck  I  saw  and  heard  in  Wyoming  might  have 
been  the  "chuck"  of  my  native  hills.  The  eagle  is 
an  eagle  the  world  over.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  saw, 
one  autumn  day,  an  eagle  descend  with  extended 
talons  upon  the  backs  of  a  herd  of  young  cattle  that 
were  accompanied  by  a  cosset-sheep  and  were  feed- 
ing upon  a  high  hill.  The  object  of  the  eagle  seemed 
to  be  to  separate  the  one  sheep  from  the  cattle,  or  to 
frighten  them  all  into  breaking  their  necks  in  trying 
to  escape  him.  But  neither  result  did  he  achieve. 
In  the  Yellowstone  Park,  President  Roosevelt  and 
Major  Pitcher  saw  a  golden  eagle  trying  the  same 
tactics  upon  a  herd  of  elk  that  contained  one  yearling. 
The  eagle  doubtless  had  his  eye  upon  the  yearling, 
though  he  would  probably  have  been  quite  satis- 
fied to  have  driven  one  of  the  older  ones  down  a 
precipice.  His  chances  of  a  dinner  would  have  been 
equally  good. 

103 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

There  is  one  particular  in  which  the  bird  families 
are  much  more  human  than  our  four-footed  kindred. 
I  refer  to  the  practice  of  courtship.  The  male  of  all 
birds,  so  far  as  I  know,  pays  suit  to  the  female  and 
seeks  to  please  and  attract  her.^  This  the  quad- 
rupeds do  not  do;  there  is  no  period  of  courtship 
among  them,  and  no  mating  or  pairing  as  among  the 
birds.  The  male  fights  for  the  female,  but  he  does 
not  seek  to  win  her  by  delicate  attentions.  If  there 
are  any  exceptions  to  this  rule,  I  do  not  know  them. 
There  seems  to  be  among  the  birds  something  that 
is  like  what  is  called  romantic  love.  The  choice  of 
mate  seems  always  to  rest  with  the  female,^  while 
among  the  mammals  the  female  shows  no  prefer- 
ence at  all. 

Among  our  own  birds,  the  prettiest  thing  I  know 
of  attending  the  period  of  courtship,  or  prelimi- 
nary to  the  match-making,  is  the  spring  musical 
festival  and  reunion  of  the  goldfinches,  which  often 
lasts  for  days,  through  rain  and  shine.  In  April  or 
May,  apparently  all  the  goldfinches  from  a  large  area 
collect  in  the  top  of  an  elm  or  a  maple  and  unite  in 
a  prolonged  musical  festival.  Is  it  a  contest  among 
the  males  for  the  favor  of  the  females,  or  is  it  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  the  gladness  of  the  whole 
clan  at  the  return  of  the  season  of  life  and  love  ? 
The  birds  seem  to  pair  soon  after,  and  doubtless  the 
concert  of  voices  has  some  reference  to  that  event. 

^  Except  in  the  case  of  certain  birds  of  India  and  Australia. 

104 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

There  is  one  other  human  practice  often  attrib- 
uted to  the  lower  animals  that  I  must  briefly  con- 
sider, and  that  is  the  practice,  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, of  poisoning  their  young.  One  often 
hears  of  caged  young  birds  being  fed  by  their  parents 
for  a  few  days  and  then  poisoned;  or  of  a  mother 
fox  poisoning  her  captive  young  when  she  finds  that 
she  cannot  liberate  him;  and  such  stories  obtain 
ready  credence  with  the  public,  especially  with  the 
young.  To  make  these  stories  credible,  one  must 
suppose  a  school  of  pharmacy,  too,  in  the  woods. 

"  The  worst  thing  about  these  poisoning  stories," 
writes  a  friend  of  mine,  himself  a  writer  of  nature- 
books,  "  is  the  implied  appreciation  of  the  full  effect 
and  object  of  poison  —  the  comprehension  by  the 
fox,  for  instance,  that  the  poisoned  meat  she  may 
be  supposed  to  find  was  placed  there  for  the  object 
of  killing  herself  (or  some  other  fox),  and  that  she 
may  apply  it  to  another  animal  for  that  purpose. 
Furthermore,  that  she  understands  the  nature  of 
death  —  that  it  brings  *  surcease  of  sorrow,'  and 
that  death  is  better  than  captivity  for  her  young  one. 
How  did  she  acquire  all  this  knowledge?  Where 
was  her  experience  of  its  supposed  truth  obtained  ? 
How  could  she  make  so  fine  and  far-seeing  a  judg- 
ment, wholly  out  of  the  range  of  brute  affairs,  and 
so  purely  philosophical  and  humanly  ethical?  It 
violates  every  instinct  and  canon  of  natural  law, 
which  is  for  the  preservation  of  life  at  all  hazards. 

105 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

This  is  simply  the  human  idea  of  *  murder/  Animals 
kill  one  another  for  food,  or  in  rivalry,  or  in  bhnd 
ferocity  of  predatory  disposition ;  but  there  is  not  a 
particle  of  evidence  that  they  '  commit  murder '  for 
ulterior  ends.  It  is  questionable  whether  they  com- 
prehend the  condition  called  death,  or  its  nature, 
in  any  proper  sense." 

On  another  occasion  I  laughed  at  a  recent  nature 
writer  for  his  credulity  in  half-believing  the  story 
told  him  by  a  fisherman,  that  the  fox  catches  crabs 
by  using  his  tail  as  a  bait ;  and  yet  I  read  in  Romanes 
that  Olaus,  in  his  account  of  Norway,  says  he  has 
seen  a  fox  do  this  very  thing  among  the  rocks  on  the 
sea-coast.^  One  would  like  to  cross-question  Olaus 
before  accepting  such  a  statement.  One  would  as 
soon  expect  a  fox  to  put  his  brush  in  the  fire  as  in  the 
water.  When  it  becomes  wet  and  bedraggled,  he  is 
greatly  handicapped  as  to  speed.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  rats  will  put  their  tails  into  jars  that  contain 
liquid  food  they  want,  and  then  lick  them  off,  as 
Romanes  proved ;  but  the  rat's  tail  is  not  a  brush, 
nor  in  any  sense  an  ornament.  Think  what  the 
fox-and-crab  story  impKes !  Now  the  fox  is  entirely 
a  land  animal,  and  lives  by  preying  upon  land  crea- 

1  A  book  published  in  London  in  1783,  entitled  A  Geographical, 
Historical,  and  Commercial  Grammar  and  the  Present  State  of  the 
Several  Kingdoms  of  the  World,  among  other  astonishing  natural 
history  notes,  makes  this  statement  about  the  white  and  red  fox  of 
Norway :  "  They  have  a  particular  way  of  drawing-  crabs  ashore 
by  dipping  their  tails  in  the  water,  which  the  crab  lays  hold  of." 

106 


ANIMAL  COMMUNICATION 

tures,  which  it  follows  by  scent  or  sight.  It  can 
neither  see  nor  smell  crabs  in  the  deep  water,  where 
crabs  are  usually  found.  How  should  it  know  that 
there  are  such  things  as  crabs  ?  How  should  it  know 
that  they  can  be  taken  with  bait  and  line  or  by  fish- 
ing for  them  ?  When  and  how  did  it  get  this  experi- 
ence? This  knowledge  belongs  to  man  alone.  It 
comes  through  a  process  of  reasoning  that  he  alone 
is  capable  of.  Man  alone  of  land  animals  sets  traps 
and  fishes.  There  is  a  fish  called  the  angler  (Lophius 
piscatoriMs) ,  which,  it  is  said  on  doubtful  authority, 
by  means  of  some  sort  of  appendages  on  its  head 
angles  for  small  fish;  but  no  competent  observer 
has  reported  any  land  animal  doing  so.  Again, 
would  a  crab  lay  hold  of  a  mass  of  fur  like  a  fox's 
tail  ?  —  even  if  the  tail  could  be  thrust  deep  enough 
into  the  water,  which  is  impossible.  Crabs,  when 
not  caught  with  hand-nets,  are  usually  taken  in 
water  eight  or  ten  feet  deep.  They  are  baited  and 
caught  with  a  piece  of  meat  tied  to  a  string,  but 
cannot  be  lifted  to  the  surface  till  they  are  eating 
the  meat,  and  then  a  dip-net  is  required  to  secure 
them.  The  story,  on  the  whole,  is  one  of  the  most 
preposterous  that  ever  gained  credence  in  natural 
history. 

Good  observers  are  probably  about  as  rare  as 
good  poets.  Accurate  seeing,  —  an  eye  that  takes  in 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  —  how 
rare  indeed  it  is !    So  few  persons  know  or  can  tell 

107 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

exactly  what  they  see;  so  few  persons  can  draw  a 
right  inference  from  an  observed  fact;  so  few  per- 
sons can  keep  from  reading  their  own  thoughts  and 
preconceptions  into  what  they  see  ;  only  a  person 
with  the  scientific  habit  of  mind  can  be  trusted  to 
report  things  as  they  are.  Most  of  us,  in  observ- 
ing the  v^ld  Hfe  about  us,  see  more  or  see  less  than 
the  truth.  We  see  less  when  our  minds  are  dull,  or 
preoccupied,  or  blunted  by  want  of  interest.  This 
is  true  of  most  country  people.  We  see  more  when 
we  read  the  Hves  of  the  wild  creatures  about  us  in 
the  Hght  of  our  human  experience,  and  impute  to 
the  birds  and  beasts  human  motives  and  methods. 
This  is  too  often  true  of  the  eager  city  man  or 
woman  who  sallies  out  into  the  country  to  study 
nature. 

The  tendency  to  sentimentalize  nature  has,  in  our 
time,  largely  taken  the  place  of  the  old  tendency  to 
demonize  and  spiritize  it.  It  is  anthropomorphism 
in  another  form,  less  fraught  with  evil  to  us,  but 
equally  in  the  way  of  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
life  about  us. 


VII 
DEVIOUS  PATHS 

THERE  is  no  better  type  or  epitome  of  wild  na- 
ture than  the  bird's-nest  —  something  built, 
and  yet  as  if  it  grew,  a  part  of  the  ground,  or  of 
the  rock,  or  of  the  branch  upon  which  it  is  placed; 
beginning  so  coarsely,  so  irregularly,  and  ending 
so  finely  and  s}Tnmetrically ;  so  unlike  the  work  of 
hands,  and  yet  the  result  of  a  skill  beyond  hands; 
and  when  it  holds  its  complement  of  eggs,  how  pleas- 
ing, how  suggestive! 

The  bird  adapts  means  to  an  end,  and  yet  so  dif- 
ferently from  the  way  of  man,  —  an  end  of  which  it 
does  not  know  the  value  or  the  purpose.  We  know 
it  is  prompted  to  it  by  the  instinct  of  reproduc- 
tion. When  the  woodpecker  in  the  fall  excavates  a 
lodge  in  a  dry  Kmb,  we  know  he  is  prompted  to  it 
by  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  but  the  birds 
themselves  obey  the  behests  of  nature  without  know- 
ledge. 

A  bird's-nest  suggests  design,  and  yet  it  seems 
almost  haphazard ;  the  result  of  a  kind  of  madness, 
yet  with  method  in  it.  The  hole  the  woodpecker 
drills  for  its  cell  is  to  the  eye  a  perfect  circle,  and  the 

109 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

rim  of  most  nests  is  as  true  as  that  of  a  cup.  The 
circle  and  the  sphere  exist  in  nature;  they  are  mo- 
ther forms  and  hold  all  other  forms.  They  are 
easily  attained;  they  are  spontaneous  and  inevit- 
able. The  bird  models  her  nest  about  her  own 
breast ;  she  turns  round  and  round  in  it,  and  its 
circular  character  results  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Angles,  right  Hnes,  measured  precision,  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  works  of  man,  are  rarely  met  with 
in  organic  nature. 

Nature  reaches  her  ends  by  devious  paths;  she 
loiters,  she  meanders,  she  plays  by  the  way;  she 
surely  "  arrives,"  but  it  is  always  in  a  blind,  hesitat- 
ing, experimental  kind  of  fashion.  Follow  the  tun- 
nels of  the  ants  or  the  crickets,  or  of  the  moles  and 
the  weasels,  underground,  or  the  courses  of  the 
streams  or  the  paths  of  the  animals  above  ground 
—  how  they  turn  and  hesitate,  how  wayward  and 
undecided  they  are!  A  right  line  seems  out  of  the 
question. 

The  oriole  often  weaves  strings  into  her  nest ; 
sometimes  she  binds  and  overhands  the  part  of  the 
rim  where  she  aHghts  in  going  in,  to  make  it  stronger, 
but  it  is  always  done  in  a  hit-or-miss,  childish  sort 
of  way,  as  one  would  expect  it  to  be;  the  strings  are 
massed,  or  snarled,  or  left  dangling  at  loose  ends,  or 
are  caught  around  branches ;  the  weaving  and  the 
sewing  are  effective,  and  the  whole  nest  is  a  mar- 
vel of  bUnd  skill,  of  untaught  intelligence;  yet  how 

110 


DEVIOUS  PATHS 

unmethodical,  how  delightfully  irregular,  how  un- 
mistakably a  piece  of  wild  nature ! 

Sometimes  the  instinct  of  the  bird  is  tardy,  and 
the  egg  of  the  bird  gets  ripe  before  the  nest  is  ready; 
in  such  a  case  the  egg  is  of  course  lost.  I  once  found 
the  nest  of  the  black  and  white  creeping  warbler  in 
a  mossy  bank  in  the  woods,  and  under  the  nest  was 
an  egg  of  the  bird.  The  warbler  had  excavated  the 
site  for  her  nest,  dropped  her  egg  into  it,  and  then 
gone  on  with  her  building.  Instinct  is  not  always 
inerrant.  Nature  is  wasteful,  and  plays  the  game 
with  a  free  hand.  Yet  what  she  loses  on  one  side  she 
gains  on  another;  she  is  like  that  least  bittern  Mr. 
Frank  M.  Chapman  tells  about.  Two  of  the  bittern's 
five  eggs  had  been  punctured  by  the  long-billed 
marsh  wren.  When  the  bird  returned  to  her  nest 
and  found  the  two  eggs  punctured,  she  made  no 
outcry,  showed  no  emotion,  but  deliberately  pro- 
ceeded to  eat  them.  Having  done  this,  she  dropped 
the  empty  shells  over  the  side  of  the  nest,  together 
with  any  straws  that  had  become  soiled  in  the  pro- 
cess, cleaned  her  bill,  and  proceeded  with  her  incu- 
bation. This  was  Nature  in  a  nut-shell,  —  or  rather 
egg-shell,  — turning  her  mishaps  to  some  good  ac- 
count. If  the  egg  will  not  make  a  bird,  it  will  make 
food;  if  not  food,  then  fertilizer. 

Among  nearly  all  our  birds,  the  female  is  the 
active  business  member  of  the  partnership ;  she  has 
a  turn  for  practical  affairs ;  she  chooses  the  site  of 

111 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  nest,  and  usually  builds  it  unaided.  The  life  of 
the  male  is  more  or  less  a  holiday  or  picnic  till  the 
young  are  hatched,  when  his  real  cares  begin,  for 
he  does  his  part  in  feeding  them.  One  may  see  the 
male  cedar-bird  attending  the  female  as  she  is  busy 
with  her  nestJbuilding,  but  never,  so  far  as  I  have 
observed,  assisting  her.  One  spring  I  observed  with 
much  interest  a  phoebe-bird  building  her  nest  not 
far  from  my  cabin  in  the  woods.  The  male  looked 
on  approvingly,  but  did  not  help.  He  perched  most 
of  the  time  on  a  mullein  stalk  near  the  Httle  spring 
run  where  Phoebe  came  for  mud.  In  the  early 
morning  hours  she  made  her  trips  at  intervals  of  a 
minute  or  two.  The  male  flirted  his  tail  and  called 
encouragingly,  and  when  she  started  up  the  hill 
with  her  load  he  would  accompany  her  part  way, 
to  help  her  over  the  steepest  part,  as  it  were,  then 
return  to  his  perch  and  watch  and  call  for  her  re- 
turn. For  an  hour  or  more  I  witnessed  this  little 
play  in  bird  hfe,  in  which  the  female's  part  was  so 
primary  and  the  male's  so  secondary.  There  is 
something  in  such  things  that  seems  to  lend  support 
to  Professor  Lester  F.  Ward's  contention,  as  set 
forth  in  his  "  Pure  Sociology,"  that  in  the  natural 
evolution  of  the  two  sexes  the  female  was  first  and 
the  male  second  ;  that  he  was  made  from  her  rib, 
so  to  speak,  and  not  she  from  his. 

With  our  phalarope  and  a  few  Australian  birds, 
the  position  of  the  two  sexes   as  indicated  above 

112 


DEVIOUS  PATHS 

is  reversed,  the  females  having  the  ornaments  and 
bright  colors  and  doing  the  courting,  while  the 
male  does  the  incubating.  In  a  few  cases  also  the 
female  is  much  the  more  masculine,  noisy,  and  pug- 
nacious. With  some  of  our  common  birds,  such  as 
the  woodpeckers,  the  chickadee,  and  the  swallows, 
both  sexes  take  part  in  nest-building.. 

It  is  a  very  pretty  sight  to  witness  a  pair  of  wood 
thrushes  building  their  nest.  Indeed,  what  is  there 
about  the  wood  thrush  that  is  not  pleasing  ?  He  is 
a  kind  of  visible  embodied  melody.  Some  birds  are 
so  sharp  and  nervous  and  emphatic  in  their  move- 
ments, as  the  common  snowbird  or  junco,  the  flash- 
ing of  whose  white  tail  quills  expresses  the  character 
of  the  bird.  But  all  the  ways  of  the  wood  thrush 
are  smooth  and  gentle,  and  suggest  the  melody  of  its 
song.  It  is  the  only  bird  thief  I  love  to  see  carrying 
off  my  cherries.  It  usually  takes  only  those  dropped 
upon  the  ground  by  other  birds,  and  with  the  red 
or  golden  globe  impaled  upon  its  beak,  its  flight 
across  the  lawn  is  a  picture  delightful  to  behold. 
One  season  a  pair  of  them  built  a  nest  in  a  near-by 
grove;  morning  after  morning,  for  many  mornings,  I 
used  to  see  the  two  going  to  and  from  the  nest,  over 
my  vineyard  and  currant  patch  and  pear  orchard,  in 
quest  of,  or  bringing  material  for,  the  structure.  They 
flew  low,  the  female  in  the  lead,  the  male  just  behind 
in  line  with  her,  timing  his  motions  to  hers,  the  two 
making  a  brown,  gently  undulating  Hne,  very  pretty 

113 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

to  look  upon,  from  my  neighbor's  field  where  they 
obtained  the  material,  to  the  tree  that  held  the  nest. 
A  gentle,  gliding  flight,  hurried  but  hushed,  as  it 
were,  and  expressive  of  privacy  and  loving  preoccu- 
pation. The  male  carried  no  material;  apparently 
he  was  simply  the  escort  of  his  mate ;  but  he  had  an 
air  of  keen  and  joyous  interest.  He  never  failed  to 
attend  her  each  way,  keeping  about  a  yard  behind 
her,  and  flying  as  if  her  thought  were  his  thought 
and  her  wish  his  wish.  I  have  rarely  seen  anything 
so  pretty  in  bird  life.  The  movements  of  all  our 
thrushes  except  the  robin  give  one  this  same  sense 
of  harmony,  —  nothing  sharp  or  angular  or  abrupt. 
Their  gestures  are  as  pleasing  as  their  notes. 

One  evening,  while  seated  upon  my  porch,  I  had 
convincing  proof  that  musical  or  song  contests  do 
take  place  among  the  birds.  Two  wood  thrushes 
who  had  nests  near  by  sat  on  the  top  of  a  dead  tree 
and  pitted  themselves  against  each  other  in  song 
for  over  half  an  hour,  contending  like  champions  in 
a  game,  and  certainly  affording  the  rarest  treat  in 
wood  thrush  melody  I  had  ever  had.  They  sang 
and  sang  with  unwearied  spirit  and  persistence, 
now  and  then  changing  position  or  facing  in  another 
direction,  but  keeping  within  a  few  feet  of  each 
other.  The  rivalry  became  so  obvious  and  was  so 
interesting  that  I  finally  made  it  a  point  not  to  take 
my  eyes  from  the  singers.  The  twilight  deepened 
till  their  forms  began  to  grow  dim ;  then  one  of  the 

114 


DEVIOUS  PATHS 

birds  could  stand  the  strain  no  longer,  the  limit  of 
fair  competition  had  been  reached,  and  seeming  to 
say,  "  I  will  silence  you,  anyhow,"  it  made  a  spite- 
ful dive  at  its  rival,  and  in  hot  pursuit  the  two  dis- 
appeared in  the  bushes  beneath  the  tree.  Of  course 
I  would  not  say  that  the  birds  were  consciously 
striving  to  outdo  each  other  in  song  ;  it  was  the  old 
feud  between  males  in  the  love  season,  not  a  war  of 
words  or  of  blows,  but  of  song.  Had  the  birds  been 
birds  of  brilhant  plumage,  the  rivalry  would  prob- 
ably have  taken  the  form  of  strutting  and  showing 
off  their  bright  colors  and  ornaments. 

An  English  writer  on  birds,  Edmund  Selous,  de- 
scribes a  similar  song  contest  between  two  night- 
ingales. "  Jealousy,"  he  says,  "  did  not  seem  to  blind 
them  to  the  merit  of  each  other's  performance. 
Though  often  one,  upon  hearing  the  sweet,  hostile 
strains,  would  burst  forth  instantly  itself,  —  and 
here  there  was  no  certain  mark  of  appreciation, 
—  yet  sometimes,  perhaps  quite  as  often,  it  would 
put  its  head  on  one  side  and  Ksten  with  exactly  the 
appearance  of  a  musical  connoisseur,  weighing, 
testing,  and  appraising  each  note  as  it  issued  from 
the  rival  bill.  A  curious,  half-suppressed  expression 
would  «teal,  or  seem  to  steal  (for  Fancy  may  play 
her  part  in  such  matters),  over  the  listening  bird, 
and  the  idea  appear  to  be, '  How  exquisite  would  be 

those  strains  were  they  not  sung  by  ,  and  yet 

I  must  admit  that  they  are  exquisite.' "    Fancy  no 

115 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

doubt  does  play  a  part  in  such  matters.  It  may  well 
be  doubted  if  birds  are  musical  connoisseurs,  or 
have  anything  like  human  appreciation  of  their  own 
or  of  each  other's  songs.  My  reason  for  thinking  so 
is  this :  I  have  heard  a  bobolink  with  an  instrument 
so  defective  that  its  song  was  broken  and  inarticu- 
late in  parts,  and  yet  it  sang  with  as  much  apparent 
joy  and  abandon  as  any  of  its  fellows.  I  have  also 
heard  a  hermit  thrush  with  a  similar  defect  or 
impediment  that  appeared  to  sing  entirely  to  its 
own  satisfaction.  It  would  be  very  interesting  to 
know  if  these  poor  singers  found  mates  as  readily 
as  their  more  gifted  brothers.  If  they  did,  the 
Darwinian  theory  of  "sexual  selection"  in  such 
matters,  according  to  which  the  finer  songster  would 
carry  off  the  female,  would  fall  to  the  ground.  Yet 
it  is  certain  that  it  is  during  the  mating  and  breeding 
season  that  these  "song  combats"  occur,  and  the 
favor  of  the  female  would  seem  to  be  the  matter  in 
dispute.  Whether  or  not  it  be  expressive  of  actual 
jealousy  or  rivalry,  we  have  no  other  words  to  apply 
to  it. 

A  good  deal  of  light  is  thrown  upon  the  ways  of 
nature  as  seen  in  the  lives  of  our  solitary  wasps,  so 
skillfully  and  charmingly  depicted  by  George  W. 
Peckham  and  his  wife  in  their  work  on  those  insects. 
So  whimsical,  so  fickle,  so  forgetful,  so  fussy,  so 
wise,  and  yet  so  foolish,  as  these  little  people  are! 
such  victims  of  routine  and  yet  so  individual,  such 

116 


DEVIOUS  PATHS 

apparent  foresight  and  yet  such  thoughtlessness,  at 
such  great  pains  and  labor  to  dig  a  hole  and  build 
a  cell,  and  then  at  times  sealing  it  up  without  storing 
it  with  food  or  laying  the  egg,  half  finishing  hole 
after  hole,  and  then  abandoning  them  without  any 
apparent  reason;  sometimes  killing  their  spiders, 
at  other  times  only  paralyzing  them;  one  species 
digging  its  burrow  before  it  captures  its  game,  oth- 
ers capturing  the  game  and  then  digging  the  hole  ; 
some  of  them  hanging  the  spider  up  in  the  fork 
of  a  weed  to  keep  it  away  from  the  ants  while  they 
work  at  their  nest,  and  running  to  it  every  few  min- 
utes to  see  that  it  is  safe;  others  laying  the  insect 
on  the  ground  while  they  dig;  one  species  walking 
backward  and  dragging  its  spider  after  it,  and  when 
the  spider  is  so  small  that  it  carries  it  in  its  mandible, 
still  walking  backward  as  if  dragging  it,  when  it 
would  be  much  more  convenient  to  walk  forward. 
A  curious  little  people,  leading  their  soKtary  lives 
and  greatly  differentiated  by  the  solitude,  hardly  any 
two  alike,  one  nervous  and  excitable,  another  calm 
and  unhurried;  one  careless  in  her  work,  another 
neat  and  thorough;  this  one  suspicious,  that  one 
confiding  ;  Ammophila  using  a  pebble  to  pack 
down  the  earth  in  her  burrow,  while  another  species 
uses  the  end  of  her  abdomen,  —  verily  a  queer  little 
people,  with  a  lot  of  wild  nature  about  them,  and  a 
lot  of  human  nature,  too. 

I  think  one  can  see  how  this  development  of  in- 

117 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

dividuality  among  the  solitary  wasps  comes  about. 
May  it  not  be  because  the  wasps  are  sohtary  ?  They 
hve  alone.  They  have  no  one  to  imitate;  they  are 
uninfluenced  by  their  fellows.  No  community  in- 
terests override  or  check  individual  whims  or  pecul- 
iarities. The  innate  tendency  to  variation,  active  in 
all  forms  of  hfe,  has  with  them  full  sway.  Among 
the  social  bees  or  wasps  one  would  not  expect  to 
find  those  differences  between  individuals.  The 
members  of  a  colony  all  appear  alike  in  habits  and 
in  dispositions.  Colonies  differ,  as  every  bee-keeper 
knows,  but  probably  the  members  composing  it 
differ  very  Httle.  The  community  interests  shape 
all  alike.  Is  it  not  the  same  in  a  degree  among  men  ? 
Does  not  solitude  bring  out  a  man's  peculiarities 
and  differentiate  him  from  others  ?  The  more  one 
hves  alone,  the  more  he  becomes  unhke  his  fellows. 
Hence  the  original  and  racy  flavor  of  woodsmen, 
pioneers,  lone  dwellers  in  Nature's  soHtudes.  Thus 
isolated  communities  develop  characteristics  of 
their  own.  Constant  intercommunication,  the  fric- 
tion of  travel,  of  streets,  of  books,  of  newspapers, 
make  us  all  alike  ;  we  are,  as  it  were,  all  pebbles 
upon  the  same  shore,  washed  by  the  same  waves. 

Among  the  larger  of  vertebrate  animals,  I  think, 
one  might  reasonably  expect  to  find  more  individual- 
ity among  those  that  are  sohtary  than  among  those 
that  are  gregarious ;  more  among  birds  of  prey  than 
among  water-fowl,  more  among  foxes  than  among 

118 


DEVIOUS  PATHS 

prairie-dogs,  more  among  moose  than  among  sheep 
or  buffalo,  more  among  grouse  than  among  quail. 
But  I  do  not  know  that  this  is  true. 

Yet  among  none  of  these  would  one  expect  to 
find  the  diversity  of  individual  types  that  one  finds 
among  men.  No  two  dogs  of  the  same  breed  will  be 
found  to  differ  as  two  men  of  the  same  family  often 
differ.  An  original  fox,  or  wolf,  or  bear,  or  beaver, 
or  crow,  or  crab,  — that  is,  one  not  merely  different 
from  his  fellows,  but  obviously  superior  to  them, 
differing  from  them  as  a  master  mind  differs  from 
the  ordinary  mind,  —  I  think,  one  need  not  expect 
to  find.  It  is  quite  legitimate  for  the  animal-story 
writer  to  make  the  most  of  the  individual  differ- 
ences in  habits  and  disposition  among  the  animals ; 
he  has  the  same  latitude  any  other  story  writer  has, 
but  he  is  bound  also  by  the  same  law  of  probabihty, 
the  same  need  of  fidelity  to  nature.  If  he  proceed 
upon  the  theory  that  the  wild  creatures  have  as  pro- 
nounced individuality  as  men  have,  that  there  are 
master  minds  among  them,  inventors  and  discov- 
erers of  new  ways,  born  captains  and  heroes,  he  will 
surely  "o'erstep  the  modesty  of  nature." 

The  great  diversity  of  character  and  capacity 
among  men  doubtless  arises  from  their  greater  and 
more  complex  needs,  relations,  and  aspirations. 
The  animals'  needs  in  comparison  are  few,  their 
relations  simple,  and  their  aspirations  nil.  One  can- 
not see  what  could  give  rise  to  the  individual  types 

119 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

and  exceptional  endowments  that  are  often  claimed 
for  them.  The  law  of  variation,  as  I  have  said, 
would  give  rise  to  differences,  but  not  to  a  sudden 
reversal  of  race  habits,  or  to  animal  geniuses. 

The  law  of  variation  is  everywhere  operative  — 
less  so  now,  no  doubt,  than  in  the  earlier  history  of 
organic  Hfe  on  the  globe.  Yet  Nature  is  still  ex- 
perimenting in  her  bHnd  way,  and  hits  upon  many 
curious  differences  and  departures.  But  I  suppose 
if  the  race  of  man  were  exterminated,  man  would 
never  arise  again.  I  doubt  if  the  law  of  evolution 
could  ever  again  produce  him,  or  any  other  species 
of  animal. 

This  principle  of  variation  was  no  doubt  much 
more  active  back  in  geologic  time,  during  the  early 
history  of  animal  hfe  upon  the  globe,  than  it  is  in  this 
late  age.  And  for  the  reason  that  animal  life  was 
less  adapted  to  its  environment  than  it  is  now,  the 
struggle  for  life  was  sharper.  Perfect  adaptation  of 
any  form  of  life  to  the  conditions  surrounding  it 
seems  to  check  variability.  Animal  and  plant  life 
seem  to  vary  more  in  this  country  than  in  England 
because  the  conditions  of  life  are  harder.  The  ex- 
tremes of  heat  and  cold,  of  wet  and  dry,  are  much 
greater.  It  has  been  found  that  the  eggs  of  the  Eng- 
lish sparrow  vary  in  form  and  color  more  in  the 
United  States  than  in  Great  Britain.  Certain  Ameri- 
can shells  are  said  to  be  more  variable  than  the  Eng- 
hsh.    Among  our  own  birds  it  has  been  found  that 

120 


DEVIOUS  PATHS 

the  "migratory  species  evince  a  greater  amount  of 
individual  variation  than  do  non-migrating  species  " 
because  they  are  subject  to  more  varying  conditions 
of  food  and  climate.  I  think  we  may  say,  then,  if 
there  were  no  struggle  for  life,  if  uniformity  of 
temperature  and  means  of  subsistence  everywhere 
prevailed,  there  would  be  httle  or  no  variation  and 
no  new  species  would  arise.  The  causes  of  variation 
seem  to  be  the  inequahty  and  imperfection  of  things ; 
the  pressure  of  life  is  unequally  distributed,  and 
this  is  one  of  Nature's  ways  that  accounts  for  much 
that  we  see  about  us. 


VIII 
WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

A  FTER  the  discussion  carried  on  in  the  forego- 
jLJl.  ing  chapters  touching  the  general  subject  of 
animal  Hfe  and  instinct,  we  are  prepared,  I  think,  to 
ask  with  more  confidence,  What  do  animals  know  ? 

The  animals  unite  such  ignorance  with  such 
apparent  knowledge,  such  stupidity  with  such  clev- 
erness, that  in  our  estimate  of  them  we  are  likely 
to  rate  their  wit  either  too  high  or  too  low.  With 
them,  knowledge  does  not  fade  into  ignorance,  as 
it  does  in  man;  the  contrast  is  like  that  between 
night  and  day,  with  no  twilight  between.  So  keen 
one  moment,  so  blind  the  next ! 

Think  of  the  ignorance  of  the  horse  after  all  his 
long  association  with  man;  of  the  trifling  things 
along  the  street  at  which  he  mil  take  fright,  till  he 
rushes  off  in  a  wild  panic  of  fear,  endangering  his 
own  neck  and  the  neck  of  his  driver.  One  would 
think  that  if  he  had  a  particle  of  sense  he  would 
know  that  an  old  hat  or  a  bit  of  paper  was  harmless. 
But  fear  is  deeply  implanted  in  his  nature;  it  has 
saved  the  lives  of  his  ancestors  countless  times,  and 
it  is  still  one  of  his  ruling  passions. 

123 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

I  have  known  a  cow  to  put  her  head  between  two 
trees  in  the  woods  —  a  kind  of  natural  stanchion  — 
and  not  have  wit  enough  to  get  it  out  again,  though 
she  could  have  done  so  at  once  by  lifting  her  head 
to  a  horizontal  position.  But  the  best  instance  I 
know  of  the  grotesque  ignorance  of  a  cow  is  given  by 
Hamerton  in  his  "  Chapters  on  Animals."  The  cow 
would  not  "  give  down  "  her  milk  unless  she  had  her 
calf  before  her.  But  her  calf  had  died,  so  the  herds- 
man took  the  skin  of  the  calf,  stuffed  it  with  hay,  and 
stood  it  up  before  the  inconsolable  mother.  Instantly 
she  proceeded  to  lick  it  and  to  yield  her  milk.  One 
day,  in  licking  it,  she  ripped  open  the  seams,  and  out 
rolled  the  hay.  This  the  mother  at  once  proceeded  to 
eat,  without  any  look  of  surprise  or  alarm.  She  hked 
hay  herself,  her  acquaintance  with  it  was  of  long 
standing,  and  what  more  natural  to  her  than  that 
her  calf  should  turn  out  to  be  made  of  hay!  Yet 
this  very  cow  that  did  not  know  her  calf  from  a  bale 
of  hay  would  have  defended  her  young  against  the 
attack  of  a  bear  or  a  wolf  in  the  most  skillful  and 
heroic  manner;  and  the  horse  that  was  nearly  fright- 
ened out  of  its  skin  by  a  white  stone,  or  by  the  flutter 
of  a  piece  of  newspaper  by  the  roadside,  would  find 
its  way  back  home  over  a  long  stretch  of  country,  or 
find  its  way  to  water  in  the  desert,  with  a  certainty 
you  or  I  could  not  approach. 

The  hen-hawk  that  the  farm-boy  finds  so  diffi- 
cult to  approach  with  his  gun  will  yet  alight  upon 

124 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

his  steel  trap  fastened  to  the  top  of  a  pole  in  the 
fields.  The  rabbit  that  can  be  so  easily  caught  in  a 
snare  or  in  a  box-trap  will  yet  conceal  its  nest  and 
young  in  the  most  ingenious  manner.  A^Tiere  instinct 
or  inherited  knowledge  can  come  into  play,  the 
animals  are  very  wise,  but  new  conditions,  new 
problems,  bring  out  their  ignorance. 

A  college  girl  told  me  an  incident  of  a  red  squirrel 
she  had  observed  at  her  home  in  Iowa  that  illus- 
trates how  shallow  the  wit  of  a  squirrel  is  when  con- 
fronted by  new  conditions.  This  squirrel  carried 
nuts  all  day  and  stored  them  in  the  end  of  a  drain- 
pipe that  discharged  the  rain-water  upon  the  pave- 
ment below.  The  nuts  obeyed  the  same  law  that  the 
rain-water  did,  and  all  rolled  through  the  pipe  and 
fell  upon  the  sidewalk.  In  the  squirrel's  experience, 
and  in  that  of  his  forbears,  all  holes  upon  the  ground 
were  stopped  at  the  far  end,  or  they  were  like  pockets, 
and  if  nuts  were  put  in  them  they  stayed  there.  A 
hollow  tube  open  at  both  ends,  that  would  not  hold 
nuts  —  this  was  too  much  for  the  wit  of  the  squir- 
rel.   But  how  wise  he  is  about  the  nuts  themselves ! 

Among  the  lower  animals  the  ignorance  of  one  is 
the  ignorance  of  all,  and  the  knowledge  of  one  is  the 
knowledge  of  all,  in  a  sense  in  which  the  same  is  not 
true  among  men.  Of  course  some  are  more  stupid 
than  others  of  the  same  species,  but  probably,  on  the 
one  hand,  there  are  no  idiots  among  them,  and,  on 
the  other,  none  is  preeminent  in  wit. 

125 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

Animals  take  the  first  step  in  knowledge  —  they 
perceive  things  and  discriminate  between  them;  but 
they  do  not  take  the  second  step  —  combine  them, 
analyze  them,  and  form  concepts  and  judgments. 

So  that,  whether  animals  know  much  or  little,  I 
think  we  are  safe  in  saying  that  what  they  know  in 
the  human  way,  that  is,  from  a  process  of  reasoning, 
is  very  sUght. 

The  animals  all  have  in  varying  degrees  perceptive 
intelligence.  They  know  what  they  see,  hear,  smell, 
feel,  so  far  as  it  concerns  them  to  know  it.  They 
know  their  kind,  their  mates,  their  enemies,  their 
food,  heat  from  cold,  hard  from  soft,  and  a  thousand 
other  things  that  it  is  important  that  they  should 
know,  and  they  know  these  things  just  as  we  know 
them,  through  their  perceptive  powers. 

We  may  ascribe  intelligence  to  the  animals  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  we  ascribe  it  to  a  child,  as  the 
perception  of  the  differences  or  of  the  likenesses  and 
the  relations  of  things  —  that  is,  perceptive  intelli- 
gence, but  not  reasoning  intelligence.  When  the 
child  begins  to  "  notice  things,"  to  know  its  mother, 
to  fear  strangers,  to  be  attracted  by  certain  objects, 
we  say  it  begins  to  show  intelligence.  Development 
in  this  direction  goes  on  for  a  long  time  before  it  can 
form  any  proper  judgment  about  things  or  take  the 
step  of  reason. 

If  we  were  to  subtract  from  the  sum  of  the  intelli- 
gence of  an  animal  that  which  it  owes  to  nature  or 

126 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

inherited  knowledge,  the  amount  left,  representing 
its  own  power  of  thought,  would  be  very  small.  Dar- 
win tells  of  a. pike  in  an  aquarium  separated  by 
plate-glass  from  fish  which  were  its  proper  food,  and 
that  the  pike,  in  trying  to  capture  the  fish,  would 
often  dash  with  such  violence  against  the  glass  as  to 
be  completely  stunned.  This  the  pike  did  for  three 
months  before  it  learned  caution.  After  the  glass 
was  removed,  the  pike  would  not  attack  those  par- 
ticular fishes,  but  would  devour  others  that  were  in- 
troduced. It  did  not  yet  understand  the  situation, 
but  merely  associated  the  punishment  it  had  received 
with  a  particular  kind  of  fish. 

During  the  mating  season  the  males  of  some  of 
our  birds  may  often  be  seen  dashing  themselves 
against  a  window,  and  pecking  and  fluttering  against 
the  pane  for  hours  at  a  time,  day  after  day.  They 
take  their  own  images  reflected  in  the  glass  to  be 
rival  birds,  and  are  bent  upon  demolishing  them. 
They  never  comprehend  the  mystery  of  the  glass,  be- 
cause glass  is  not  found  in  nature,  and  neither  they 
nor  their  ancestors  have  had  any  experience  with  it. 

Contrast  these  incidents  with  those  which  Dar- 
win relates  of  the  American  monkeys.  When  the 
monkeys  had  cut  themselves  once  with  any  sharp 
tool,  they  would  not  touch  it  again,  or  else  would 
handle  it  with  the  greatest  caution.  They  evinced 
the  simpler  forms  of  reason,  of  which  monkeys  are 
no  doubt  capable. 

127 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

Animals  are  wise  as  Nature  is  wise;  they  partake, 
each  in  its  own  measure,  of  that  universal  intelli- 
gence, or  mind-stuff,  that  is  operative  in  all  things 
—  in  the  vegetable  as  well  as  in  the  animal  world. 
Does  the  body,  or  the  life  that  fills  it,  reason  when 
it  tries  to  get  rid  of,  or  to  neutralize  the  effects  of,  a 
foreign  substance,  like  a  bullet,  by  encysting  it  ?  or 
when  it  thickens  the  skin  on  the  hand  or  on  any 
other  part  of  the  body,  even  forming  special  pads 
called  callosities,  as  a  result  of  the  increased  wear  or 
friction  ?  This  may  be  called  physiological  intelli- 
gence. 

But  how  blind  tliis  intelligence  is  at  times,  or  how 
wanting  in  judgment,  may  be  seen  when  it  tries  to 
develop  a  callosity  upon  the  foot  as  a  result  of  the 
friction  of  the  shoe,  and  overdoes  the  matter  and 
produces  the  corn.  The  corn  is  a  physiological  blun- 
der. Or  see  an  unexpected  manifestation  of  this 
intelligence  when  we  cut  off  the  central  and  leading 
shoot  of  a  spruce  or  of  a  pine  tree,  and  straightway 
one  of  the  lateral  and  horizontal  branches  rises  up, 
takes  the  place  of  the  lost  leader,  and  carries  the 
tree  upward ;  or  in  the  roots  of  a  tree  working  their 
way  through  the  ground  much  like  molten  metal, 
parting  and  uniting,  taking  the  form  of  whatever 
object  they  touch,  shaping  themselves  to  the  rock, 
flowing  into  its  seams,  the  better  to  get  a  grip  upon 
the  earth  and  thus  maintain  an  upright  position. 

In  the  animal  world  this  foresight  becomes  psychic 

128 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

intelligence,  developing  in  man  the  highest  form  of 
all,  reasoned  inteUigence.  When  an  animal  solves  a 
new  problem  or  meets  a  new  condition  as  effectually 
as  the  tree  or  the  body  does  in  the  cases  I  have  just 
cited,  we  are  wont  to  ascribe  to  it  powers  of  reason. 
Reason  we  may  call  it,  but  it  is  reason  not  its  own. 

This  universal  or  cosmic  intelligence  makes  up 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  what  animals  know.  The 
domestic  animals,  such  as  the  dog,  that  have  long 
been  under  the  tutelage  of  man,  of  course  show  more 
independent  power  of  thought  than  the  uneducated 
beasts  of  the  fields  and  woods. 

The  plant  is  wise  in  all  ways  to  reproduce  and 
perpetuate  itself;  see  the  many  ingenious  devices 
for  scattering  seed.  In  the  animal  world  this  intelH- 
gence  is  most  keen  and  active  in  the  same  direction. 
The  wit  of  the  animal  comes  out  most  clearly  in 
looking  out  for  its  food  and  safety.  We  are  often 
ready  to  ascribe  reason  to  it  in  feats  shown  in  these 
directions. 

In  man  alone  does  this  universal  intelligence  or 
mind-stuff  reach  out  beyond  these  primary  needs  and 
become  aware  of  itself.  What  the  plant  or  the  animal 
does  without  thought  or  rule,  man  takes  thought 
about.  He  considers  his  ways.  I  noticed  that  the 
scallops  in  the  shallow  water  on  the  beach  had  the 
power  to  anchor  themselves  to  stones  or  to  some 
other  object,  by  putting  out  a  httle  tough  but  elastic 
cable  from  near  the  hinge,  and  that  they  did  so  when 

129 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  water  was  rough;  but  I  could  not  look  upon  it 
as  an  act  of  conscious  or  individual  intelligence  on 
the  part  of  the  bivalve.  It  was  as  much  an  act  of  the 
general  intelligence  to  which  I  refer  as  was  its  hinge 
or  its  form.  But  when  the  sailor  anchors  his  ship, 
that  is  another  matter.  He  thinks  about  it,  he  rea- 
sons from  cause  to  effect,  he  sees  the  storm  coming, 
he  has  a  fund  of  experience,  and  his  act  is  a  special 
indi\ddual  act. 

The  muskrat  builds  its  house  instinctively,  and 
all  muskrats  build  ahke.  Man  builds  his  house 
from  reason  and  forethought.  Savages  build  as 
nearly  ahke  as  the  animals,  but  civilized  man  shows 
an  endless  variety.  The  higher  the  intelligence,  the 
greater  the  diversity. 

The  sitting  bird  that  is  so  sohcitous  to  keep  its 
eggs  warm,  or  to  feed  and  defend  its  young,  prob- 
ably shows  no  more  independent  and  individual 
intelligence  than  the  plant  that  strives  so  hard  to  ma- 
ture and  scatter  its  seed.  A  plant  will  grow  toward 
the  hght;  a  tree  will  try  to  get  from  under  another 
tree  that  overshadows  it ;  a  willow  will  run  its  roots 
toward  the  water:  but  these  acts  are  the  results  of 
external  stimuli  alone. 

When  I  go  to  pass  the  winter  in  a  warmer  climate, 
the  act  is  the  result  of  calculation  and  of  weighing 
pros  and  cons.  I  can  go,  or  I  can  refrain  from  go- 
ing. Not  so  with  the  migrating  birds.  Nature  plans 
and  thinks  for  them;  it  is  not  an  individual  act  on 

130 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

the  part  of  each;  it  is  a  race  instinct:  they  must  go; 
the  life  of  the  race  demands  it.  Or  when  the  old 
goose  covers  up  her  nest,  or  the  rabbit  covers  her 
young  with  a  blanket  of  hair  and  grass  of  her  own 
weaving,  I  do  not  look  upon  these  things  as  inde- 
pendent acts  of  intelligence:  it  is  the  cunning  of 
nature;  it  is  a  race  instinct. 

Animals,  on  the  whole,  know  what  is  necessary 
for  them  to  know  —  what  the  conditions  of  life  have 
taught  their  ancestors  through  countless  genera- 
tions. It  is  very  important,  for  instance,  that 
amphibians  shall  have  some  sense  that  shall  guide 
them  to  the  water  ;  and  they  have  such  a  sense.  It 
is  said  that  young  turtles  and  crocodiles  put  down 
anywhere  will  turn  instantly  toward  the  nearest 
water.  It  is  certain  that  the  beasts  of  the  field  have 
such  a  sense  much  more  fully  developed  than  has 
man.  It  is  of  vital  importance  that  birds  should 
know  how  to  fly,  how  to  build  their  nests,  how  to 
find  their  proper  food,  and  when  and  where  to 
migrate,  without  instruction  or  example,  otherwise 
the  race  might  become  extinct. 

Richard  Jefferies  says  that  most  birds' -nests  need 
a  structure  around  them  like  a  cage  to  keep  the 
young  from  falling  out  or  from  leaving  the  nest  pre- 
maturely. Now,  if  such  a  structure  were  needed, 
either  the  race  of  birds  would  have  failed,  or  the 
structure  would  have  been  added.  Since  neither  has 
happened,  we  are  safe  in  concluding  it  is  not  needed. 

131 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

We  are  not  warranted  in  attributing  to  any  wild, 
untrained  animal  a  degree  of  intelligence  that  its 
forbears  could  not  have  possessed.  The  animals 
for  the  most  part  act  upon  inherited  knowledge,  that 
is,  knowledge  that  does  not  depend  upon  instruction 
or  experience.  For  instance,  the  red  squirrels  near 
me  seem  to  know  that  chestnut-burs  will  open  if  cut 
from  the  tree  and  allowed  to  lie  upon  the  ground.  iVt 
least,  they  act  upon  this  theory.  I  do  not  suppose 
this  fact  or  knowledge  lies  in  the  squirrel's  mind  as 
it  would  in  that  of  a  man  —  as  a  deduction  from 
facts  of  experience  or  of  observation.  The  squirrel 
cuts  off  the  chestnuts  because  he  is  hungry  for  them, 
and  because  his  ancestors  for  long  generations  have 
cut  them  off  in  the  same  way.  That  the  air  or  sun 
will  cause  the  burs  to  open  is  a  bit  of  knowledge  that 
I  do  not  suppose  he  possesses  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  possess  it:  he  is  in  a  hurry  for  the  nuts,  and 
does  not  by  any  means  always  wait  for  the  burs  to 
open ;  he  frequently  chips  them  up  and  eats  the  pale 
nuts. 

The  same  squirrel  will  bite  into  the  limbs  of  a 
maple  tree  in  spring  and  suck  the  sap.  What  does 
he  know  about  maple  trees  and  the  spring  flow  of 
sap  ?  Nothing  as  a  mental  concept,  as  a  bit  of  con- 
crete knowledge.  He  often  finds  the  sap  flowing 
from  a  crack  or  other  wound  in  the  limbs  of  a  maple, 
and  he  sips  it  and  likes  it.  Then  he  sinks  his  teeth 
into  the  limb,  as  his  forbears  undoubtedly  did. 

132 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

When  I  was  a  boy  and  saw,  as  I  often  did  on  my 
way  to  school,  where  a  squirrel  had  stopped  on  his 
course  through  the  woods  and  dug  down  through 
two  or  three  feet  of  snow,  bringing  up  a  beech-nut 
or  an  acorn,  I  used  to  wonder  how  he  knew  the  nut 
was  there.  I  am  now  convinced  that  he  smelled  it. 

Why  should  he  not  ?  It  stands  the  squirrel  in  hand 
to  smell  nuts ;  they  are  his  life.  He  knows  a  false  nut 
from  a  good  one  without  biting  into  it.  Try  the 
experiment  upon  your  tame  chipmunk  or  caged  gray 
squirrel,  and  see  if  this  is  not  so.  The  false  or  dead 
nut  is  lighter,  and  most  persons  think  this  fact  guides 
the  squirrel.  But  this,  it  seems  to  me,  implies  an 
association  of  ideas  beyond  the  reach  of  instinct.  A 
young  squirrel  will  reject  a  worthless  nut  as  promptly 
as  an  old  one  will.  Again  the  sense  of  smell  is  the 
guide;  the  sound-meated  nut  has  an  odor  which  the 
other  has  not.  All  animals  are  keen  and  wise  in 
relation  to  their  food  and  to  their  natural  enemies. 
A  red  squirrel  will  chip  up  green  apples  and  pears 
for  the  seeds  at  the  core:  can  he  know,  on  general 
principles,  that  these  fruits  contain  seeds  ?  Does 
not  some  clue  to  them  reach  his  senses  ? 

I  have  known  gray  squirrels  to  go  many  hundred 
yards  in  winter  across  fields  to  a  barn  that  contained 
grain  in  the  sheaf.  They  could  have  had  no  other 
guide  to  the  grain  than  the  sense  of  smell.  Watch  a 
chipmunk  or  any  squirrel  near  at  hand:  as  a  friend 
of  mine  observed,  he  seems  to  be  smelling  with  his 

133 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

whole  body;  his  abdomen  fairly  palpitates  with  the 
effort. 

The  coon  knows  when  the  corn  is  in  the  milk, 
gaining  that  knowledge,  no  doubt,  through  his  nose. 
At  times  he  seems  to  know  enough,  too,  to  cut  off 
his  foot  when  caught  in  a  trap,  especially  if  the  foot 
becomes  frozen;  but  if  you  tell  me  he  will  treat  his 
wound  by  smearing  it  with  pitch  or  anything  else, 
or  in  any  way  except  by  Ucking  it,  I  shall  discredit 
you.  The  practice  of  the  art  of  healing  by  the 
application  of  external  or  foreign  substances  is  a 
conception  entirely  beyond  the  capacity  of  any  of 
the  lower  animals.  If  such  a  practice  had  been 
necessary  for  the  continuance  of  the  species,  it 
would  probably  have  been  used.  The  knowledge 
it  imphes  could  not  be  inherited;  it  must  needs 
come  by  experience.  When  a  fowl  eats  gravel  or 
sand,  is  it  probable  that  the  fowl  knows  what  the 
practice  is  for,  or  has  any  notion  at  all  about  the 
matter?  It  has  a  craving  for  the  gravel,  that  is 
all.   Nature  is  wise  for  it. 

The  ostrich  is  described  by  those  who  know  it  in- 
timately as  the  most  stupid  and  witless  of  birds,  and 
yet  before  leaving  its  eggs  exposed  to  the  hot  African 
sun,  the  parent  bird  knows  enough  to  put  a  large 
pinch  of  sand  on  the  top  of  each  of  them,  in  order, 
it  is  said,  to  shade  and  protect  the  germ,  which 
alwr.ys  rises  to  the  highest  point  of  the  egg.  This 
act  certainly  cannot  be  the  result  of  knowledge,  as 

134 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

we  use  the  term ;  the  young  ostrich  does  it  as  well  as 
the  old.  It  is  the  inherited  wisdom  of  the  race,  or 
instinct. 

A  sitting  bird  or  fowl  turns  its  eggs  at  regular 
intervals,  which  has  the  effect  of  keeping  the  yolk 
from  sticking  to  the  shell.  Is  this  act  the  result  of 
knowledge  or  of  experience  ?  It  is  again  the  result 
of  that  untaught  knowledge  called  instinct.  Some 
kinds  of  eggs  hatch  in  two  weeks,  some  in  three, 
others  in  four.  The  mother  bird  has  no  knowledge 
of  this  period.  It  is  not  important  that  she  should 
have.  If  the  eggs  are  addled  or  sterile,  she  will  often 
continue  to  sit  beyond  the  normal  period.  If  the 
continuance  of  the  species  depended  upon  her  know- 
ing the  exact  time  required  to  hatch  her  eggs,  as  it 
depends  upon  her  having  the  incubating  fever,  of 
course  she  would  know  exactly,  and  would  never  sit 
beyond  the  required  period. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  Mrs.  Annie  Martin's 
story,  in  her  "  Home  Life  on  an  Ostrich  Farm,"  of 
the  white-necked  African  crow  that,  in  order  to  feast 
upon  the  eggs  of  the  ostrich,  carries  a  stone  high 
in  the  air  above  them  and  breaks  them  by  letting  it 
fall  ?  This  looks  like  reason,  a  knowledge  of  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect.  Mrs.  Martin  says  the  crows 
break  tortoise-shells  in  the  same  way,  and  have  I  not 
heard  of  our  own  crows  and  gulls  carrying  clams 
and  crabs  into  the  air  and  dropping  them  upon  the 
rocks  ? 

135 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

If  Mrs.  Martin's  statements  are  literally  true,  — 
if  she  has  not  the  failing,  so  common  among  women 
observers,  of  letting  her  feeling  and  her  fancies  color 
her  observations,  —  then  her  story  shows  how  the 
pressure  of  hunger  will  develop  the  wit  of  a  crow. 

But  the  story  goes  one  step  beyond  my  credence. 
It  virtually  makes  the  crow  a  tool-using  animal,  and 
Darwin  knew  of  but  two  animals,  the  man-hke  ape 
and  the  elephant,  that  used  anything  like  a  tool  or 
weapon  to  attain  their  ends.  How  could  the  crow  gain 
the  knowledge  or  the  experience  which  this  trick 
implies  ?  What  could  induce  it  to  make  the  first 
experiment  of  breaking  an  egg  with  a  falHng  stone 
but  an  acquaintance  with  physical  laws  such  as  man 
alone  possesses  ?  The  first  step  in  this  chain  of  causa- 
tion it  is  easy  to  conceive  of  any  animal  taking  ; 
namely,  the  direct  application  of  its  own  powers  or 
weapons  to  the  breaking  of  the  shell.  But  the  second 
step,  —  the  making  use  of  a  foreign  substance  or 
object  in  the  way  described,  —  that  is  what  staggers 
one. 

Our  own  crow  has  great  cunning,  but  it  is  only 
cunning.  He  is  suspicious  of  everything  that  looks 
like  design,  that  suggests  a  trap,  even  a  harmless 
string  stretched  around  a  corn-field.  As  a  natural 
philosopher  he  makes  a  poor  show,  and  the  egg  or  the 
shell  that  he  cannot  open  with  his  own  beak  he  leaves 
beliind.  Yet  even  his  alleged  method  of  dropping 
clams  upon  the  rocks  to  break  the  shells  does  not 

136 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

seem  incredible.  He  might  easily  drop  a  clam  by 
accident,  and  then,  finding  the  shell  broken,  repeat 
the  experiment.  He  is  still  only  taking  the  first  step 
in  the  sequence  of  causations. 

A  recent  English  nature-writer,  on  the  whole,  I 
think,  a  good  observer  and  truthful  reporter,  Mr. 
Richard  Kearton,  tells  of  an  osprey  that  did  this 
incredible  thing:  to  prevent  its  eggs  from  being 
harmed  by  an  enforced  exposure  to  the  sun,  the  bird 
plunged  into  the  lake,  then  rose,  and  shook  its  drip- 
ping plumage  over  the  nest.  The  writer  apparently 
reports  this  story  at  second-hand.  It  is  incredible 
to  me,  because  it  imphes  a  knowledge  that  the  hawk 
could  not  possibly  possess. 

Such  an  emergency  could  hardly  arise  once  in  a 
lifetime  to  it  or  its  forbears.  Hence  the  act  could  not 
have  been  the  result  of  inherited  habit,  or  instinct, 
and  as  an  original  act  on  the  part  of  the  osprey  it  is 
not  credible.  The  bird  probably  plunged  into  the 
lake  for  a  fish,  and  then  by  accident  shook  itself 
above  the  eggs.  In  any  case,  the  amount  of  water 
that  would  fall  upon  the  eggs  under  such  circum- 
stances would  be  too  shght  to  temper  appreciably 
the  heat. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  among  certain  of  our 
common  birds  the  male,  during  periods  of  excessive 
heat,  has  been  known  to  shade  the  female  with  his 
outstretched  wings,  and  the  mother  bird  to  shade 
her  young  in  the  same  way.   But  this  is  a  different 

137 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

matter.  Tliis  emergency  must  have  occurred  for  ages, 
and  it,  again,  called  only  for  the  first  step  from  cause 
to  effect,  and  called  for  the  use  of  no  intermediate 
agent.  If  the  robin  were  to  hold  a  leaf  or  a  branch 
above  his  mate  at  such  times,  that  would  imply 
reflection. 

It  is  said  that  elephants  in  India  will  besmear 
themselves  with  mud  as  a  protection  against  insects, 
and  that  they  will  break  branches  from  the  trees 
and  use  them  to  brush  away  the  flies.  If  this  is  true, 
it  shows,  I  tliink,  something  beyond  instinct  in  the 
elephant;  it  shows  reflection. 

All  birds  are  secretive  about  their  nests,  and  dis- 
play great  cunning  in  hiding  them ;  but  whether  they 
know  the  value  of  adaptive  material,  such  as  moss, 
lichens,  and  dried  grass,  in  helping  to  conceal  them, 
admits  of  doubt,  because  they  so  often  use  the  re- 
sults of  our  own  arts,  as  paper,  rags,  strings,  tinsel, 
in  such  a  reckless  way.  In  a  perfectly  wild  state  they 
use  natural  material  because  it  is  the  handiest  and 
there  is  really  no  other.  The  phoebe  uses  the  moss 
on  or  near  the  rocks  where  she  builds ;  the  sparrows, 
the  bobolinks,  and  the  meadowlarks  use  the  dry 
grass  of  the  bank  or  of  the  meadow  bottom  where 
the  nest  is  placed. 

The  English  writer  to  whom  I  have  referred  says 
that  the  wren  builds  the  outside  of  its  nest  of  old  hay 
straws  when  placing  it  in  the  side  of  a  rick,  of  green 
moss  when  it  is  situated  in  a  mossy  bank,  and  of 

138 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

dead  leaves  when  in  a  hedge-row  or  a  bramble-bush, 
in  each  case  thus  rendering  the  nest  very  difficult  of 
detection  because  it  harmonizes  so  perfectly  with  its 
surroundings,  and  the  writer  wonders  if  this  har- 
mony is  the  result  of  accident  or  of  design.  He  is 
inclined  to  think  that  it  is  unpremeditated,  as  I  my- 
self do.   The  bird  uses  the  material  nearest  to  hand. 

Another  case,  which  this  same  writer  gives  at 
second-hand,  of  a  bird  recognizing  the  value  of  pro- 
tective coloration,  is  not  credible.  A  friend  of  his 
told  him  that  he  had  once  visited  a  colony  of  terns 
"on  an  island  where  the  natural  breeding  accom- 
modation was  so  Hmited  that  many  of  them  had 
conveyed  patches  of  pebbles  on  to  the  grass  and  laid 
their  eggs  thereon." 

Here  is  the  same  difficulty  we  have  encountered 
before  —  one  more  step  of  reasoning  than  the  bird 
is  capable  of.  As  a  deduction  from  observed  facts, 
a  bird,  of  course,  knows  nothing  about  protective 
coloring ;  its  wisdom  in  this  respect  is  the  wisdom 
of  Nature,  and  Nature  in  animal  hfe  never  acts  with 
this  kind  of  foresight.  A  bird  may  exercise  some 
choice  about  the  background  of  its  nest,  but  it  will 
not  make  both  nest  and  background. 

Nature  learns  by  endless  experiment.  Through  a 
long  and  expensive  process  of  natural  selection  she 
seems  to  have  brought  the  color  of  certain  animals 
and  the  color  of  their  environment  pretty  close 
together,  the  better  to  hide  the  animals  from  their 

139 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

enemies  and  from  their  prey,  as  we  are  told ;  but  the 
animals  themselves  do  not  know  this,  though  they 
may  act  as  if  they  did.  Young  terns  and  gulls  in- 
stinctively squat  upon  the  beach,  where  their  colors 
so  harmonize  with  the  sand  and  pebbles  that  the 
birds  are  virtually  invisible.  Young  partridges  do 
the  same  in  the  woods,  where  the  eye  cannot  tell  the 
reddish  tuft  of  down  from  the  dry  leaves.  How  many 
gulls  and  terns  and  partridges  were  sacrificed  before 
Nature  learned  this  trick! 

I  regard  the  lower  animals  as  incapable  of  taking 
the  step  from  the  fact  to  the  principle.  They  have 
perceptions,  but  not  conceptions.  They  may  recog- 
nize a  certain  fact,  but  any  deduction  from  that  fact 
to  be  applied  to  a  different  case,  or  to  meet  new 
conditions,  is  beyond  them.  Wolves  and  foxes  soon 
learn  to  be  afraid  of  poisoned  meat :  just  what  gives 
them  the  hint  it  would  be  hard  to  say,  as  the  sur- 
vivors could  not  know  the  poison's  deadly  effect  from 
experience;  their  fear  of  it  probably  comes  from 
seeing  their  fellows  suffer  and  die  after  eating  it,  or 
maybe  through  that  mysterious  means  of  communi- 
cation between  animals  to  which  I  have  referred  in 
a  previous  article.  The  poison  probably  changes  the 
odor  of  the  meat,  and  this  strange  smell  would 
naturally  put  them  on  their  guard. 

We  do  not  expect  rats  to  succeed  in  putting  a  bell 
on  the  cat,  but  if  they  were  capable  of  conceiving 
such  a  thing,  that  would  establish  their  claim  to  be 

140 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

regarded  as  reasonable  beings.  I  should  as  soon 
expect  a  fox  or  a  wolf  to  make  use  of  a  trap  to  cap- 
ture its  prey  as  to  make  use  of  poison  in  any  way. 
Why  does  not  the  fox  take  a  stick  and  spring  the 
trap  he  is  so  afraid  of?  Simply  because  the  act 
would  involve  a  mental  process  beyond  him.  He  has 
not  yet  learned  to  use  even  the  simplest  implement 
to  attain  his  end.  Then  he  would  probably  be  just  as 
afraid  of  the  trap  after  it  was  sprung  as  before.  He 
in  some  way  associates  it  with  his  arch-enemy,  man. 

Such  stories,  too,  as  a  chained  fox  or  a  coyote 
getting  possession  of  corn  or  other  grain  and  bait- 
ing the  chickens  with  it  —  feigning  sleep  till  the 
chicken  gets  within  reach,  and  then  seizing  it — are 
of  the  same  class,  incredible  because  transcending 
the  inherited  knowledge  of  those  animals.  I  can 
believe  that  a  fox  might  walk  in  a  shallow  creek  to 
elude  the  hound,  because  he  may  inherit  this  kind 
of  cunning,  and  in  his  own  experience  he  may  have 
come  to  associate  loss  of  scent  with  water.  Animals 
stalk  their  prey,  or  lie  in  wait  for  it,  instinctively,  not 
from  a  process  of  calculation,  as  man  does.  If  a  fox 
would  bait  poultry  with  corn,  why  should  he  not,  in 
his  wild  state,  bait  mice  and  squirrels  with  nuts  and 
seeds  ?  Has  a  cat  ever  been  known  to  bait  a  rat  with 
a  piece  of  cheese  ? 

Animals  seem  to  have  a  certain  association  of 
ideas;  one  thing  suggests  another  to  them,  as  with 
us.    This  fact  is  made  use  of  by  animal-trainers.    I 

141 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

can  easily  believe  the  story  Charles  St.  John  tells  of 
the  fox  he  saw  waylaying  some  hares,  and  which, 
to  screen  himself  the  more  completely  from  his 
quarry,  scraped  a  small  hollow  in  the  ground  and 
threw  up  the  sand  about  it.  But  if  St.  John  had  said 
that  the  fox  brought  weeds  or  brush  to  make  himself 
a  blind,  as  the  hunter  often  does,  I  should  have  dis- 
credited him,  just  as  I  discredit  the  observation  of 
a  man  quoted  by  Romanes,  who  says  that  jackals, 
ambushing  deer  at  the  latter's  watering-place,  de- 
liberately wait  till  the  deer  have  filled  themselves 
with  water,  knowing  that  in  that  state  they  are  more 
easily  run  down  and  captured ! 

President  Roosevelt,  in  "  The  Wilderness  Hunter," 
—  a  book,  by  the  way,  of  even  deeper  interest  to  the 
naturalist  than  to  the  sportsman,  —  says  that  the 
moose  has  to  the  hunter  the  "  very  provoking  habit 
of  making  a  half  or  three-quarters  circle  before  lying 
down,  and  then  crouching  with  its  head  so  turned 
that  it  can  surely  perceive  any  pursuer  who  may  fol- 
low its  trail."  This  is  the  cunning  of  the  moose 
developed  through  long  generations  of  its  hunted 
and  wolf -pursued  ancestors,  —  a  cunning  that  does 
not  differ  from  that  of  a  man  under  the  same  circum- 
stances, though,  of  course,  it  is  not  the  result  of  the 
same  process  of  reasoning. 

I  have  known  a  chipping  sparrow  to  build  her  nest 
on  a  grape-vine  just  beneath  a  bunch  of  small  green 
grapes.    Soon  the  bunch  grew  and  lengthened  and 

142 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

filled  the  nest,  crowding  out  the  bird.  If  the  bird 
could  have  foreseen  the  danger,  she  would  have 
shown  something  like  human  reason. 

Birds  that  nest  along  streams,  such  as  the  water- 
thrush  and  the  water-ouzel,  I  suppose  are  rarely 
ever  brought  to  grief  by  high  water.  They  have 
learned  through  many  generations  to  keep  at  a  safe 
distance.  I  have  never  known  a  woodpecker  to  drill 
its  nesting-cavity  in  a  branch  or  limb  that  was  ready 
to  fall.  Not  that  woodpeckers  look  the  branch  or  tree 
over  with  a  view  to  its  stability,  but  that  they  will  cut 
into  a  tree  only  of  a  certain  hardness ;  it  is  a  family 
instinct.  Birds  sometimes  make  the  mistake  of 
building  their  nests  on  slender  branches  that  a  sum- 
mer tempest  will  turn  over,  thus  causing  the  eggs  or 
the  young  to  spill  upon  the  ground.  Even  instinct 
cannot  always  get  ahead  of  the  weather. 

It  is  almost  impossible  for  us  not  to  interpret  the 
lives  of  the  lower  animals  in  the  terms  of  our  own 
experience  and  our  own  psychology.  I  entirely  agree 
with  Lloyd  Morgan  that  we  err  when  we  do  so, 
when  we  attribute  to  them  what  we  call  sentiments 
or  any  of  the  emotions  that  spring  from  our  moral 
and  aesthetic  natures,  —  the  sentiments  of  justice, 
truth,  beauty,  altruism,  goodness,  duty,  and  the 
like,  —  because  these  sentiments  are  the  products 
of  concepts  and  ideas  to  which  the  brute  natures 
are  strangers.  But  all  the  emotions  of  our  animal 
nature  —  fear,   anger,  curiosity,  local  attachment, 

143 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

jealousy,  and  rivalry  —  are  undoubtedly  the  same 
in  the  lower  orders. 

Though  almost  anything  may  be  affirmed  of  dogs, 
for  they  are  nearly  half  human,  yet  I  doubt  if  even 
dogs  experience  the  feeling  of  shame  or  guilt  or 
revenge  that  we  so  often  ascribe  to  them.  These 
feelings  are  all  complex  and  have  a  deep  root.  When 
I  was  a  youth,  my  father  had  a  big  churn-dog  that 
appeared  one  morning  with  a  small  bullet-hole  in 
his  hip.  Day  after  day  the  old  dog  treated  his 
wound  with  his  tongue,  after  the  manner  of  dogs, 
until  it  healed,  and  the  incident  was  nearly  forgotten. 
One  day  a  man  was  going  by  on  horseback,  when 
the  old  dog  rushed  out,  sprang  at  the  man,  and  came 
near  pulling  him  from  the  horse.  It  turned  out  that 
this  was  the  person  who  had  shot  the  dog,  and  the 
dog  recognized  him. 

This  looks  Hke  revenge,  and  it  would  have  been 
such  in  you  or  me,  but  in  the  dog  it  was  probably 
simple  anger  at  the  sight  of  the  man  who  had  hurt 
him.  The  incident  shows  memory  and  the  asso- 
ciation of  impressions,  but  the  complex  feeling  of 
vengeance,  as  we  know  it,  is  another  matter. 

If  animals  do  not  share  our  higher  intellectual 
nature,  we  have  no  warrant  for  attributing  to  them 
anything  like  our  higher  and  more  complex  emo- 
tional nature.  Musical  strains  seem  to  give  them 
pain  rather  than  pleasure,  and  it  is  quite  evident  that 
pei-fumes  have  no  attraction  for  them. 

144 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

The  stories,  which  seem  to  be  well  authenticated, 
of  sheep-killing  dogs  that  have  slipped  their  collars 
in  the  night  and  indulged  their  passion  for  live  mut- 
ton, and  then  returned  and  thrust  their  necks  into 
their  collars  before  their  absence  was  discovered,  do 
not,  to  my  mind,  prove  that  the  dogs  were  trying  to 
deceive  their  masters  and  conceal  their  guilt,  but 
rather  show  how  obedient  to  the  chain  and  collar 
the  dogs  had  become.  They  had  long  been  subject 
to  such  control  and  discipline,  and  they  returned  to 
them  again  from  the  mere  force  of  habit. 

I  do  not  believe  even  the  dog  to  be  capable  of  a 
sense  of  guilt.  Such  a  sense  implies  a  sense  of  duty, 
and  this  is  a  complex  ethical  sense  that  the  animals 
do  not  experience.  What  the  dog  fears,  and  what 
makes  him  put  on  his  look  of  guilt  and  shame,  is  his 
master's  anger.  A  harsh  word  or  a  severe  look  will 
make  him  assume  the  air  of  a  culprit  whether  he  is 
one  or  not,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  kind  word  and 
a  reassuring  smile  will  transform  him  into  a  happy 
beast,  no  matter  if  the  blood  of  his  victim  is  fresh 
upon  him. 

A  dog  is  to  be  broken  of  a  bad  habit,  if  at  all,  not 
by  an  appeal  to  his  conscience  or  to  his  sense  of 
duty,  for  he  has  neither,  but  by  an  appeal  to  his 
susceptibility  to  pain. 

Both  Pliny  and  Plutarch  tell  the  story  of  an  ele- 
phant which,  having  been  beaten  by  its  trainer  for 
its  poor  dancing,  was  afterward  found  all  by  itself 

145 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

practicing  its  steps  by  the  light  of  the  moon.  This  is 
just  as  credible  as  many  of  the  animal  stories  one 
hears  nowadays. 

Many  of  the  actions  of  the  lower  animals  are  as 
automatic  as  those  of  the  tin  rooster  that  serves  as 
a  weather-vane.  See  how  intelhgently  the  rooster 
acts,  always  pointing  the  direction  of  the  wind  with- 
out a  moment's  hesitation.  Or  behold  the  vessel 
anchored  in  the  harbor,  how  intelligently  it  adjusts 
itself  to  the  winds  and  the  tides !  I  have  seen  a  log, 
caught  in  an  eddy  in  a  flooded  stream,  apparently 
make  such  struggles  to  escape  that  the  thing  became 
almost  uncanny  in  its  semblance  to  life.  Man  him- 
self often  obeys  just  such  unseen  currents  of  race  or 
history  when  he  thinks  he  is  acting  upon  his  own 
initiative. 

When  I  was  in  Alaska,  I  saw  precipices  down 
which  hundreds  of  horses  had  dashed  themselves  in 
their  mad  and  desperate  efforts  to  escape  from  the 
toil  and  suffering  they  underwent  on  the  White  Pass 
trail.  Shall  we  say  these  horses  deliberately  com- 
mitted suicide  ?  Suicide  it  certainly  was  in  effect,  but 
of  course  not  in  intention.  What  does  or  can  a  horse 
know  about  death,  or  about  self-destruction  ?  These 
animals  were  maddened  by  their  hardships,  and 
blindly  plunged  down  the  rocks. 

The  tendency  to  humanize  the  animals  is  more 
and  more  marked  in  all  recent  nature  books  that  aim 
at  popularity.   A  recent  British  book  on  animal  life 

146 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS  KNOW? 

has  a  chapter  entitled  "Animal  Materia  Medica." 
The  writer,  to  make  out  his  case,  is  forced  to  treat 
as  medicine  the  salt  which  the  herbivorous  am'mals 
eat,  and  the  sand  and  gravel  which  grain  and  nut- 
eating  birds  take  into  their  gizzards  to  act  as  mill- 
stones to  grind  their  grist.  He  might  as  well  treat 
their  food  as  medicine  and  be  done  with  it.  So  far 
as  I  know,  animals  have  no  remedies  whatever  for 
their  ailments.  Even  savages  have,  for  the  most 
part,  only  "fake"  medicines. 

A  Frenchman  has  published  a  book,  which  has 
been  translated  into  English,  on  the  "  Industries  of 
Animals."  Some  of  these  Frenchmen  could  give 
points  even  to  our  "Modern  School  of  Nature 
Study."  It  may  be  remembered  that  Michelet  said 
the  bird  floated,  and  that  it  could  puff  itself  up  so 
that  it  was  lighter  than  the  air !  Not  a  little  contem- 
porary natural  science  can  beat  the  bird  in  this 
respect. 

The  serious  student  of  nature  can  have  no  interest 
in  belittling  or  in  exaggerating  the  intelligence  of 
animals.  What  he  wants  is  the  truth  about  them, 
and  this  he  will  not  get  from  our  natural  history 
romancers,  nor  from  the  casual,  untrained  observers, 
who  are  sure  to  interpret  the  lives  of  the  wood-folk 
in  terms  of  their  own  motives  and  experiences,  nor 
from  Indians,  trappers,  or  backwoodsmen,  who  give 
such  free  rein  to  their  fancies  and  superstitions. 

Such  a  book  as  Romanes's  "  Animal  Intelligence  " 

147 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

is  not  always  a  safe  guide.  It  is  like  a  lawyer's  plea 
to  the  jury  for  his  client.  Romanes  was  so  intent 
upon  making  out  his  case  that  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  imposed  upon  by  the  tales  of  irresponsible 
observers.  Many  of  his  stories  of  the  intelhgence  of 
birds  and  beasts  are  antecedently  improbable.  He 
evidently  credits  the  story  of  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle, 
who  thinks  he  saw  a  jackdaw  being  tried  by  a  jury  of 
rooks  for  some  misdemeanor.  Jack  made  a  speech 
and  the  jury  cawed  back  at  him,  and  after  a  time 
appeared  to  acquit  Jack!  What  a  child's  fancy  to 
be  put  in  a  serious  work  on  "  Animal  Intelhgence  " ! 
The  dead  birds  we  now  and  then  find  hanging  from 
the  nest,  or  from  the  limb  of  a  tree,  with  a  string 
wound  around  their  necks  are  no  doubt  criminals 
upon  whom  their  fellows  have  inflicted  capital  pun- 
ishment ! 

Most  of  the  observations  upon  which  Romanes 
bases  his  conclusions  are  like  the  incident  which  he 
quoted  from  Jesse,  who  tells  of  some  swallows  that 
in  the  spirit  of  revenge  tore  down  a  nest  from  which 
they  had  been  ejected  by  the  sparrows,  in  order  to 
destroy  the  young  of  their  enemies  —  a  feat  im- 
possible for  swallows  to  do.  Jesse  does  not  say  he 
saw  the  swallows  do  it,  but  he  "  saw  the  young  spar- 
rows dead  upon  the  ground  amid  the  ruins  of  the 
nest,"  and  of  course  the  nest  could  get  down  in  no 
other  way! 

Not  to  Romanes  or  Jesse  or  Michelet  must  we  go 

148 


WHAT  DO  ANIMALS    KNOW? 

for  the  truth  about  animals,  but  to  the  patient,  hon- 
est Darwin,  to  such  calm,  keen,  and  philosophical 
investigators  as  Lloyd  Morgan,  and  to  the  books  of 
such  sportsmen  as  Charles  St.  John,  or  to  our  own 
candid,  trained,  and  many-sided  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, —  men  capable  of  disinterested  observation, 
with  no  theories  about  animals  to  uphold. 


IX 

DO   ANIMALS   THINK   AND    REFLECT? 

WHEN  we  see  the  animals  going  about,  living 
their  lives  in  many  ways  as  we  live  ours, 
seeking  their  food,  avoiding  their  enemies,  building 
their  nests,  digging  their  holes,  laying  up  stores, 
migrating,  courting,  playing,  fighting,  showing  cun- 
ning, courage,  fear,  joy,  anger,  rivalry,  grief,  profit- 
ing by  experience,  following  their  leaders,  —  when 
we  see  all  this,  I  say,  what  more  natural  than  that  we 
should  ascribe  to  them  powers  akin  to  our  own,  and 
look  upon  them  as  thinking,  reasoning,  and  reflect- 
ing. A  hasty  survey  of  animal  life  is  sure  to  lead  to 
this  conclusion.  An  animal  is  not  a  clod,  nor  a  block, 
nor  a  machine.  It  is  alive  and  self-directing,  it  has 
some  sort  of  psychic  life,  yet  the  more  I  study  the 
subject,  the  more  I  am  persuaded  that  with  the 
probable  exception  of  the  dog  on  occasions,  and  of 
the  apes,  animals  do  not  think  or  reflect  in  any  proper 
sense  of  those  words.  As  I  have  before  said,  animal 
life  shows  in  an  active  and  free  state  that  kind  of 
intelligence  that  pervades  and  governs  the  whole 
organic  world,  —  intelligence  that  takes  no  thought 
of  itself.  Here,  in  front  of  my  window,  is  a  black 

151 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

raspberry  bush.  A  few  weeks  ago  its  branches 
curved  upward,  with  their  ends  swinging  fully  two 
feet  above  the  ground;  now  those  ends  are  thrust 
down  through  the  weeds  and  are  fast  rooted  to 
the  soil.  Did  the  raspberry  bush  think,  or  choose 
what  it  should  do  ?  Did  it  reflect  and  say,  Now 
is  the  time  for  me  to  bend  down  and  thrust  my  tip 
into  the  ground  ?  To  all  intents  and  purposes  yes, 
yet  there  was  no  voluntary  mental  process,  as  in 
similar  acts  of  our  own.  We  say  its  nature  prompts 
it  to  act  thus  and  thus,  and  that  is  all  the  explana- 
tion we  can  give.  Or  take  the  case  of  the  pine  or  the 
spruce  tree  that  loses  its  central  and  leading  shoot. 
When  this  happens,  does  the  tree  start  a  new  bud 
and  then  develop  a  new  shoot  to  take  the  place  of 
the  lost  leader  ?  No,  a  branch  from  the  first  ring  of 
branches  below,  probably  the  most  vigorous  of  the 
whorl,  is  promoted  to  the  leadership.  Slowly  it  rises 
up,  and  in  two  or  three  years  it  reaches  the  upright 
position  and  is  leading  the  tree  upward.  This,  I 
suspect,  is  just  as  much  an  act  of  conscious  intelli- 
gence and  of  reason  as  is  much  to  which  we  are 
so  inclined  to  apply  those  words  in  animal  life.  I 
suppose  it  is  all  foreordained  in  the  economy  of 
the  tree,  if  we  could  penetrate  that  economy.  It  is 
in  this  sense  that  Nature  thinks  in  the  animal,  and 
the  vegetable,  and  the  mineral  worlds.  Her  think- 
ing is  more  flexible  and  adaptive  in  the  vegetable 
than  in  the  mineral,  and  more  so  in  the  animal 

152 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

than  in  the  vegetable,  and  the  most  so  of  all  in  the 
mind  of  man. 

The  way  the  wild  apple  trees  and  the  red  thorn 
trees  in  the  pasture,  as  described  by  Thoreau,  tri- 
umph over  the  cattle  that  year  after  year  browse 
them  down,  suggests  something  almost  hke  human 
tactics.  The  cropped  and  bruised  tree,  not  being 
allowed  to  shoot  upward,  spreads  more  and  more 
laterally,  thus  pushing  its  enemies  farther  and 
farther  away,  till,  after  many  years,  a  shoot  starts  up 
from  the  top  of  the  thorny,  knotted  cone,  and  in  one 
season,  protected  by  this  cheval-de-frise,  attains  a 
height  beyond  the  reach  of  the  cattle,  and  the  victory 
is  won.  Now  the  whole  push  of  the  large  root  system 
goes  into  the  central  shoot  and  the  tree  is  rapidly 
developed. 

This  almost  looks  like  a  well-laid  scheme  on  the 
part  of  the  tree  to  defeat  its  enemies.  But  see  how 
inevitable  the  whole  process  is.  Check  the  direct 
flow  of  a  current  and  it  will  flow  out  at  the  sides  ; 
check  the  side  issues  and  they  will  push  out  on  their 
sides,  and  so  on.  So  it  is  with  the  tree  or  seedhng. 
The  more  it  is  cropped,  the  more  it  branches  and 
rebranches,  pushing  out  laterally  as  its  vertical 
growth  is  checked,  till  it  has  surrounded  the  central 
stalk  on  all  sides  with  a  dense,  thorny  hedge.  Then 
as  this  stalk  is  no  longer  cropped,  it  leads  the 
tree  upward.  The  lateral  branches  are  starved,  and 
in  a  few  years  the  tree  stands  with  little  or  no  evi- 

153 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

dence  of  the  ordeal  it  has  passed  through.  In  like 
manner  the  nature  of  the  animals  prompts  them  to 
the  deeds  they  do,  and  we  think  of  them  as  the 
result  of  a  mental  process,  because  similar  acts  in 
ourselves  are  the  result  of  such  a  process. 

See  how  the  mice  begin  to  press  into  our  buildings 
as  the  fall  comes  on.  Do  they  know  winter  is  com- 
ing ?  In  the  same  way  the  vegetable  world  knows 
it  is  coming  when  it  prepares  for  winter,  or  the  insect 
world  when  it  makes  ready,  but  not  as  you  and  I 
know  it.  The  woodchuck  "holes  up"  in  late  Sep- 
tember ;  the  crows  flock  and  select  their  rookery 
about  the  same  time,  and  the  small  wood  newts  or 
salamanders  soon  begin  to  migrate  to  the  marshes. 
They  all  know  winter  is  coming,  just  as  much  as 
the  tree  knows,  when  in  August  it  forms  its  new 
buds  for  the  next  year,  or  as  the  flower  knows  that 
its  color  and  perfume  will  attract  the  insects,  and 
no  more.  The  general  intelligence  of  nature  settles 
all  these  and  similar  things. 

When  a  bird  selects  a  site  for  its  nest,  it  seems,  on 
first  view,  as  if  it  must  actually  think,  reflect,  com- 
pare, as  you  and  I  do  when  we  decide  where  to  place 
our  house.  I  saw  a  little  chipping  sparrow  trying 
to  decide  between  two  raspberry  bushes.  She  kept 
going  from  one  to  the  other,  peering,  inspecting,  and 
apparently  weighing  the  advantages  of  each.  I  saw  a 
robin  in  the  woodbine  on  the  side  of  the  house  try- 
ing to  decide  which  particular  place  was  the  best  site 

154 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

for  her  nest.  She  hopped  to  this  tangle  of  shoots  and 
sat  down,  then  to  that,  she  turned  around,  she  re- 
adjusted herself,  she  looked  about,  she  worked  her 
feet  beneath  her,  she  was  slow  in  making  up  her 
mind.  Did  she  make  up  her  mind  ?  Did  she  think, 
compare,  weigh  ?  I  do  not  believe  it.  When  she 
found  the  right  conditions,  she  no  doubt  felt  pleasure 
and  satisfaction,  and  that  settled  the  question.  An 
inward,  instinctive  want  was  met  and  satisfied  by  an 
outward  material  condition.  In  the  same  way  the 
hermit  crab  goes  from  shell  to  shell  upon  the  beach, 
seeking  one  to  its  liking.  Sometimes  two  crabs  fall 
to  fighting  over  a  shell  that  each  wants.  Can  we 
believe  that  the  hermit  crab  thinks  and  reasons  ?  It 
selects  the  suitable  shell  instinctively,  and  not  by  an 
individual  act  of  judgment.  Instinct  is  not  always 
inerrant,  though  it  makes  fewer  mistakes  than  reason 
does.  The  red  squirrel  usually  knows  how  to  come 
at  the  meat  in  the  butternut  with  the  least  gnawing, 
but  now  and  then  he  makes  a  mistake  and  strikes  the 
edge  of  the  kernel,  instead  of  the  flat  side.  The  cliff 
swallow  will  stick  her  mud  nest  under  the  eaves  of  a 
barn  where  the  boards  are  planed  so  smooth  that  the 
nest  sooner  or  later  is  bound  to  fall.  She  seems  to 
have  no  judgment  in  the  matter.  Her  ancestors  built 
upon  the  face  of  high  cliffs,  where  the  mud  adhered 
more  firmly. 

A  wood  thrush  began  a  nest  in  one  of  my  maples, 
as  usual  making  the  foundation  of  dry  leaves,  bits 

155 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

of  paper,  and  dry  grass.  After  the  third  day  the  site 
on  the  branch  was  bare,  the  wind  having  swept 
away  every  vestige  of  the  nest.  As  I  passed  beneath 
the  tree  I  saw  the  thrush  standing  where  the  nest 
had  been,  apparently  in  deep  thought.  A  few  days 
afterward  I  looked  again,  and  the  nest  was  com- 
pleted. The  bird  had  got  ahead  of  the  wind  at 
last.  The  nesting -instinct  had  triumphed  over  the 
weather. 

Take  the  case  of  the  little  yellow  warbler  when 
the  cowbird  drops  her  egg  into  its  nest  —  does  any- 
thing like  a  process  of  thought  or  reflection  pass  in 
the  bird's  mind  then  ?  The  warbler  is  much  dis- 
turbed when  she  discovers  the  strange  egg,  and  her 
mate  appears  to  share  her  agitation.  Then  after  a 
time,  and  after  the  two  have  apparently  considered 
the  matter  together,  the  mother  bird  proceeds  to 
bury  the  egg  by  building  another  nest  on  top  of  the 
old  one.  If  another  cowbird's  egg  is  dropped  in  this 
one,  she  will  proceed  to  get  rid  of  this  in  the  same 
way.  This  all  looks  very  like  reflection.  But  let  us 
consider  the  matter  a  moment.  This  thing  between 
the  cowbird  and  the  warbler  has  been  going  on  for 
innumerable  generations.  The  yellow  warbler 
seems  to  be  the  favorite  host  of  this  parasite,  and 
something  like  a  special  instinct  may  have  grown  up 
in  the  warbler  with  reference  to  this  strange  egg. 
The  bird  reacts,  as  the  psychologists  say,  at  sight  of 
it,  then  she  proceeds  to  dispose  of  it  in  the  way 

156 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

above  described.  All  yellow  warblers  act  in  the  same 
manner,  which  is  the  way  of  instinct.  Now  if  this 
procedure  was  the  result  of  an  individual  thought 
or  calculation  on  the  part  of  the  birds,  they  would 
not  all  do  the  same  thing  ;  different  lines  of  conduct 
would  be  hit  upon.  How  much  simpler  and  easier 
it  would  be  to  throw  the  egg  out  —  how  much  more 
hke  an  act  of  rational  intelligence.  So  far  as  I  know, 
no  bird  does  eject  this  parasitical  eggy  and  no  other 
bird  besides  the  yellow  warbler  gets  rid  of  it  in 
the  way  I  have  described.  I  have  found  a  deserted 
phoebe's  nest  with  one  egg  of  the  phoebe  and  one  of 
the  cowbird  in  it. 

Some  of  our  wild  birds  have  changed  their  habits 
of  nesting,  coming  from  the  woods  and  the  rocks  to 
the  protection  of  our  buildings.  The  phoebe-bird 
and  the  cliif  swallow  are  marked  examples.  We 
ascribe  the  change  to  the  birds'  intelligence,  but  to 
my  mind  it  shows  only  their  natural  adaptiveness. 
Take  the  cliff  swallow,  for  instance;  it  has  largely 
left  the  cHffs  for  the  eaves  of  our  buildings.  How  nat- 
urally and  instinctively  this  change  has  come  about ! 
In  an  open  farming  country  insect  life  is  much  more 
varied  and  abundant  than  in  a  wild,  unsettled  coun- 
try. This  greater  food  supply  naturally  attracts  the 
swallows.  Then  the  protecting  eaves  of  the  buildings 
would  stimulate  their  nesting-instincts.  The  abun- 
dance of  mud  along  the  highways  and  about  the 
farm  would  also  no  doubt  have  its  effect,  and  the 

157 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

birds  would  adopt  the  new  sites  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Or  take  the  phoebe,  which  originally  built  its  nest 
under  ledges,  and  does  so  still  to  some  extent.  It, 
too,  would  find  a  more  abundant  food  supply  in  the 
vicinity  of  farm-buildings  and  bridges.  The  pro- 
tected nesting-sites  afforded  by  sheds  and  porches 
would  likewise  stimulate  its  nesting-instincts,  and 
attract  the  bird  as  we  see  it  attracted  each  spring. 

Nearly  everything  an  animal  does  is  the  result  of 
an  inborn  instinct  acted  upon  by  an  outward  stimu- 
lus. The  margin  wherein  intelligent  choice  plays  a 
part  is  very  small.  But  it  does  at  times  play  a  part 
—  perceptive  intelligence,  but  not  rational  intelli- 
gence. The  insects  do  many  things  that  look  like  in- 
telligence, yet  how  these  things  differ  from  human 
intelligence  may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  one  of  our  soli- 
tary wasps,  —  the  mud-dauber,  —  which  sometimes 
builds  its  cell  with  great  labor,  then  seals  it  up  with- 
out laying  its  egg  and  storing  it  with  the  accustomed 
spiders.  Intelligence  never  makes  that  kind  of  a 
mistake,  but  instinct  does.  Instinct  acts  more  in 
the  invariable  way  of  a  machine.  Certain  of  the 
solitary  wasps  bring  their  game  —  spider,  or  bug, 
or  grasshopper  —  and  place  it  just  at  the  entrance 
of  their  hole,  and  then  go  into  their  den  apparently 
to  see  that  all  is  right  before  they  carry  it  in. 

Fabre,  the  French  naturalist,  experimented  with 
one  of  these  wasps,  as  follows :  While  the  wasp  was 
in  its  den  he  moved  its  grasshopper  a  few  inches 

158 


DO   ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

away.  The  wasp  came  out,  brought  it  to  the  open- 
ing as  before,  and  went  within  a  second  time ;  again 
the  game  was  removed,  again  the  wasp  came  out 
and  brought  it  back  and  entered  her  nest  as  before. 
This  little  comedy  was  repeated  over  and  over ; 
each  time  the  wasp  felt  compelled  to  enter  her  hole 
before  dragging  in  the  grasshopper.  She  was  like 
a  machine  that  would  work  that  way  and  no  other. 
Step  must  follow  step  in  just  such  order.  Any  inter- 
ruption of  the  regular  method  and  she  must  begin 
over  again.  This  is  instinct,  and  the  incident  shows 
how  widely  it  differs  from  conscious  intelligence. 

If  you  have  a  tame  chipmunk,  turn  him  loose 
in  an  empty  room  and  give  him  some  nuts.  Find- 
ing no  place  to  hide  them,  he  will  doubtless  carry 
them  into  a  comer  and  pretend  to  cover  them  up. 
You  will  see  his  paws  move  quickly  about  them  for 
an  instant  as  if  in  the  act  of  pulhng  leaves  or  mould 
over  them.  His  machine,  too,  must  work  in  that  way. 
After  the  nuts  have  been  laid  down,  the  next  thing 
in  order  is  to  cover  them,  and  he  makes  the  motions 
all  in  due  form.  Intelligence  would  have  omitted 
this  useless  act. 

A  canary-bird  in  its  cage  will  go  through  all  the 
motions  of  taldng  a  bath  in  front  of  the  cup  that 
holds  its  drinking-water  when  it  can  only  dip  its  bill 
into  the  hquid.  The  sight  or  touch  of  the  water  ex-^ 
cites  it  and  sets  it  going,  and  with  now  and  then  a 
drop  thrown  from  its  beak  it  will  keep  up  the  flirting 

159 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

and  fluttering  motion  of  its  tail  and  wings  precisely 
as  if  taking  a  real  instead  of  an  imaginary  bath. 

Attempt  to  thwart  the  nesting-instinct  in  a  bird 
and  see  how  persistent  it  is,  and  how  blind!  One 
spring  a  pair  of  English  sparrows  tried  to  build  a 
nest  on  the  plate  that  upholds  the  roof  of  my  porch. 
They  were  apparently  attracted  by  an  opening  about 
an  inch  wide  in  the  top  of  the  plate,  that  ran  the 
whole  length  of  it.  The  pair  were  busy  nearly  the 
whole  month  of  April  in  carrying  nesting-material 
to  various  points  ori  that  plate.  That  big  crack  or 
opening  which  was  not  large  enough  to  admit  their 
bodies  seemed  to  have  a  powerful  fascination  for 
them.  They  carried  straws  and  weed  stalks  and 
filled  up  one  portion  of  it,  and  then  another  and 
another,  till  the  crack  was  packed  with  rubbish  from 
one  end  of  the  porch  to  the  other,  and  the  indignant 
broom  of  the  housekeeper  grew  tired  of  sweeping 
up  the  litter.  The  birds  could  not  effect  an  entrance 
into  the  interior  of  the  plate,  but  they  could  thrust 
in  their  nesting- material,  and  so  they  persisted  week 
after  week,  stimulated  by  the  presence  of  a  cavity 
beyond  their  reach.  The  case  is  a  good  illustration 
of  the  bUnd  working  of  instinct. 

Animals  have  keen  perceptions,  — keener  in  many 
respects  than  our  own,  —  but  they  form  no  concep- 
tions, have  no  powers  of  comparing  one  thing  with 
another.  They  live  entirely  in  and  through  their 
senses. 

160 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

It  is  as  if  the  psychic  world  were  divided  into  two 
planes,  one  above  the  other,  — the  plane  of  sense  and 
the  plane  of  spirit.  In  the  plane  of  sense  live  the 
lower  animals,  only  now  and  then  just  breaking  for 
a  moment  into  the  higher  plane.  In  the  world  of 
sense  man  is  immersed  also  —  this  is  his  start  and 
foundation ;  but  he  rises  into  the  plane  of  spirit,  and 
here  lives  his  proper  life.  He  is  emancipated  from 
sense  in  a  way  that  beasts  are  not. 

Thus,  I  think,  the  line  between  animal  and  human 
psychology  may  be  pretty  clearly  drawn.  It  is  not 
a  dead-level  hne.  Instinct  is  undoubtedly  often 
modified  by  intelhgence,  and  intelligence  is  as  often 
guided  or  prompted  by  instinct,  but  one  need  not 
hesitate  long  as  to  which  side  of  the  line  any  given 
act  of  man  or  beast  belongs.  When  the  fox  resorts 
to  various  tricks  to  outwit  and  delay  the  hound  (if 
he  ever  consciously  does  so),  he  exercises  a  kind  of 
intelligence,  —  the  lower  form  which  we  call  cun- 
ning, —  and  he  is  prompted  to  this  by  an  instinct 
of  self-preservation.  When  the  birds  set  up  a  hue  and 
cry  about  a  hawk  or  an  owl,  or  boldly  attack  him, 
they  show  intelligence  in  its  simpler  form,  the  intel- 
hgence that  recognizes  its  enemies,  prompted  again 
by  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  When  a  hawk 
does  not  know  a  man  on  horseback  from  a  horse,  it 
shows  a  want  of  intelligence.  When  a  crow  is  kept 
away  from  a  corn-field  by  a  string  stretched  around 
it,  the  fact  shows  how  masterful  is  its  fear  and  how 

161 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

shallow  its  wit.  When  a  cat  or  a  dog,  or  a  horse  or 
a  cow,  learns  to  open  a  gate  or  a  door,  it  shows  a 
degree  of  intelligence  —  power  to  imitate,  to  profit 
by  experience.  A  machine  could  not  learn  to  do 
this.  If  the  animal  were  to  close  the  door  or  gate  be- 
hind it,  that  would  be  another  step  in  intelligence. 
But  its  direct  wants  have  no  relation  to  the  closing 
of  the  door,  only  to  the  opening  of  it.  To  close  the 
door  involves  an  after-thought  that  an  animal  is  not 
capable  of.  A  horse  will  hesitate  to  go  upon  thin  ice 
or  upon  a  frail  bridge,  even  though  it  has  never  had 
any  experience  with  thin  ice  or  frail  bridges.  This, 
no  doubt,  is  an  inherited  instinct,  which  has  arisen 
in  its  ancestors  from  their  fund  of  general  experience 
with  the  world.  How  much  with  them  has  depended 
upon  a  secure  footing!  A  pair  of  house  wrens  had 
a  nest  in  my  well-curb ;  when  the  young  were  partly 
grown  and  heard  any  one  come  to  the  curb,  they 
would  set  up  a  clamorous  calling  for  food.  When  I 
scratched  against  the  sides  of  the  curb  beneath  them 
like  some  animal  trying  to  climb  up,  their  voices 
instantly  hushed;  the  instinct  of  fear  promptly 
overcame  the  instinct  of  hunger.  Instinct  is  intelli- 
gent, but  it  is  not  the  same  as  acquired  individual 
intelligence;  it  is  untaught. 

When  the  nuthatch  carries  a  fragment  of  a  hick- 
ory-nut to  a  tree  and  wedges  it  into  a  crevice  in  the 
bark,  the  bird  is  not  showing  an  individual  act  of 
inteUigence  :   all  nuthatches  do  this  ;  it  is  a  race 

162 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

instinct.  The  act  shows  intelligence, — that  is,  it 
adapts  means  to  an  end,  —  but  it  is  not  like  human 
or  individual  intelligence,  which  adapts  new  means 
to  old  ends,  or  old  means  to  new  ends,  and  which 
springs  up  on  the  occasion.  Jays  and  chickadees 
hold  the  nut  or  seed  they  would  peck  under  the  foot, 
but  the  nuthatch  makes  a  vise  to  hold  it  of  the  bark 
of  the  tree,  and  one  act  is  just  as  intelligent  as  the 
other;  both  are  the  promptings  of  instinct.  But 
when  man  makes  a  vise,  or  a  wedge,  or  a  bootjack, 
he  uses  his  individual  intelhgence.  When  the  jay 
carries  away  the  corn  you  put  out  in  winter  and 
hides  it  in  old  worms'  nests  and  knot-holes  and 
crevices  in  trees,  he  is  obeying  the  instinct  of  all 
his  tribe  to  pilfer  and  hide  things,  —  an  instinct 
that  plays  its  part  in  the  economy  of  nature,  as  by 
its  means  many  acorns  and  chestnuts  get  planted 
and  large  seeds  widely  disseminated.  By  this  greed 
of  the  jay  the  wingless  nuts  take  flight,  oaks  are 
planted  amid  the  pines,  and  chestnuts  amid  the 
hemlocks. 

Speaking  of  nuts  reminds  me  of  an  incident  I 
read  of  the  deer  or  white-footed  mouse  —  an  in- 
cident that  throws  light  on  the  limitation  of  animal 
intelhgence.  The  writer  gave  the  mouse  hickory- 
nuts,  which  it  attempted  to  cany  through  a  crack 
between  the  laths  in  the  kitchen  wall.  The  nuts 
were  too  large  to  go  through  the  crack.  The  mouse 
would  try  to  push  them  through ;  failing  in  that,  he 

163 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

would  go  through  and  then  try  to  pull  them  after 
him.  All  night  he  or  his  companion  seems  to  have 
kept  up  this  futile  attempt,  fumbling  and  dropping 
the  nut  every  few  minutes.  It  never  occurred  to  the 
mouse  to  gnaw  the  hole  larger,  as  it  would  instantly 
have  done  had  the  hole  been  too  small  to  admit  its 
own  body.  It  could  not  project  its  mind  thus  far; 
it  could  not  get  out  of  itself  sufficiently  to  regard 
the  nut  in  its  relation  to  the  hole,  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  any  four-footed  animal  is  capable  of  that  degree 
of  reflection  and  comparison.  Nothing  in  its  own 
life  or  in  the  life  of  its  ancestors  had  prepared  it  to 
meet  that  Idnd  of  a  difficulty  with  nuts.  And  yet 
the  writer  who  made  the  above  observation  says 
that  when  confined  in  a  box,  the  sides  of  which  are 
of  unequal  thickness,  the  deer  mouse,  on  attempt- 
ing to  gnaw  out,  almost  invariably  attacks  the  thin- 
nest side.  How  does  he  know  which  is  the  thinnest 
side?-  Probably  by  a  delicate  and  trained  sense  of 
feehng  or  hearing.  In  gnawing  through  obstruc- 
tions from  within,  or  from  without,  he  and  his  kind 
have  had  ample  experience. 

Now  when  we  come  to  insects,  we  find  that  the 
above  inferences  do  not  hold.  It  has  been  observed 
that  when  a  solitary  wasp  finds  its  hole  in  the  ground 
too  small  to  admit  the  spider  or  other  insect  which 
it  has  brought,  it  falls  to  and  enlarges  it.  In  this 
and  in  other  respects  certain  insects  seem  to  take 
the  step  of  reason  that  quadrupeds  are  incapable  of. 

164 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

Lloyd  Morgan  relates  at  some  length  the  experi- 
ments he  tried  with  his  fox  terrier,  Tony,  seeking  to 
teach  him  how  to  bring  a  stick  through  a  fence  with 
vertical  palings.  The  spaces  would  allow  the  dog 
to  pass  through,  but  the  palings  caught  the  ends  of 
the  stick  which  the  dog  carried  in  his  mouth.  When 
his  master  encouraged  him,  he  pushed  and  strug- 
gled vigorously.  Not  succeeding,  he  went  back, 
lay  down,  and  began  gnawing  the  stick.  Then  he 
tried  again,  and  stuck  as  before,  but  by  a  chance 
movement  of  his  head  to  one  side  finally  got  the 
stick  through.  His  master  patted  him  approvingly 
and  sent  him  for  the  stick  again.  Again  he  seized 
it  by  the  middle,  and  of  course  brought  up  against 
the  palings.  After  some  struggles  he  dropped  it 
and  came  through  without  it.  Then,  encouraged 
by  his  master,  he  put  his  head  through,  seized  the 
stick,  and  tried  to  pull  it  through,  dancing  up  and 
down  in  his  endeavors.  Time  after  time  and  day 
after  day  the  experiment  was  repeated  with  prac- 
tically the  same  results.  The  dog  never  mastered 
the  problem.  He  could  not  see  the  relation  of  that 
stick  to  the  opening  in  the  fence.  At  one  time  he 
worked  and  tugged  three  minutes  trying  to  pull  the 
stick  through.  Of  course,  if  he  had  had  any  mental 
conception  of  the  problem  or  had  thought  about  it 
at  all,  a  single  trial  would  have  convinced  him  as 
well  as  would  a  dozen  trials.  Mr.  Morgan  tried  the 
experiment  ^dth  other  dogs  with  like  result.     When 

165 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

they  did  get  the  stick  through,  it  was  always  by 
chance. 

It  has  never  been  necessary  that  the  dog  or  his 
ancestors  should  know  how  to  fetch  long  sticks 
through  a  narrow  opening  in  a  fence.  Hence  he 
does  not  know  the  trick  of  it.  But  we  have  a  httle 
bird  that  knows  the  trick.  The  house  wren  will 
carry  a  twig  three  inches  long  through  a  hole  of 
half  that  diameter.  She  knows  how  to  manage  it 
because  the  wren  tribe  have  handled  twigs  so  long 
in  building  their  nests  that  this  knowledge  has 
become  a  family  instinct. 

What  we  call  the  intelligence  of  animals  is  limited 
for  the  most  part  to  sense  perception  and  sense 
memory.  We  teach  them  certain  things,  train  them 
to  do  tricks  quite  beyond  the  range  of  their  natural 
intelhgence,  not  because  we  enlighten  their  minds 
or  develop  their  reason,  but  mainly  by  the  force  of 
habit.  Through  repetition  the  act  becomes  auto- 
matic. Who  ever  saw  a  trained  animal,  unless  it  be 
the  elephant,  do  anything  that  betrayed  the  least 
spark  of  conscious  intelhgence  ?  The  trained  pig,  or 
the  trained  dog,  or  the  trained  Hon  does  its"  stunt" 
precisely  as  a  machine  would  do  it  —  without  any 
more  appreciation  of  what  it  is  doing.  The  trainer 
and  pubhc  performer  find  that  things  must  always 
be  done  in  the  same  fixed  order;  any  change,  any- 
thing unusual,  any  strange  sound,  Hght,  color,  or 
movement,  and  trouble  at  once  ensues. 

166 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

I  read  of  a  beaver  that  cut  down  a  tree  which 
was  held  in  such  a  way  that  it  did  not  fall,  but  sim- 
ply dropped  down  the  height  of  the  stump.  The 
beaver  cut  it  off  again;  again  it  dropped  and  re- 
fused to  fall ;  he  cut  it  off  a  third  and  a  fourth  time : 
still  the  tree  stood.  Then  he  gave  it  up.  Now,  so 
far  as  I  can  see,  the  only  independent  intelligence 
the  animal  showed  was  when  it  ceased  to  cut  off  the 
tree.  Had  it  been  a  complete  automaton,  it  would 
have  gone  on  cutting  —  would  it  not  ?  —  till  it  made 
stove-wood  of  the  whole  tree.  It  was  confronted 
by  a  new  problem,  and  after  a  while  it  took  the 
hint.  Of  course  it  did  not  understand  what  was  the 
matter,  as  you  and  I  would  have,  but  it  evidently 
concluded  that  something  was  wrong.  Was  this  of 
itself  an  act  of  intelligence  ?  Though  it  may  be  that 
its  ceasing  to  cut  off  the  tree  was  simply  the  result 
of  discouragement,  and  involved  no  mental  con- 
clusion at  all.  It  is  a  new  problem,  a  new  condition, 
that  tests  an  animal's  intelligence.  How  long  it 
takes  a  caged  bird  or  beast  to  learn  that  it  cannot 
escape!  What  a  man  would  see  at  a  glance  it  takes 
weeks  or  months  to  pound  into  the  captive  bird,  or 
squirrel,  or  coon.  When  the  prisoner  ceases  to  strug- 
gle, it  is  probably  not  because  it  has  at  last  come  to 
understand  the  situation,  but  because  it  is  discour- 
aged.  It  is  checked,  but  not  enlightened. 

Even  so  careful  an  observer  as  Gilbert  White 
credits  the  swallow  with  an  act  of  judgment  to 

167 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

which  it  is  not  entitled.  He  says  that  in  order  that 
the  mud  nest  may  not  advance  too  rapidly  and  so 
fall  of  its  own  weight,  the  bird  works  at  it  only  in  the 
morning,  and  plays  and  feeds  the  rest  of  the  day, 
thus  giving  the  mud  a  chance  to  harden.  Had  not 
the  genial  parson  observed  that  this  is  the  practice 
of  all  birds  during  nest-building — that  they  work 
in  the  early  morning  hours  and  feed  and  amuse 
themselves  the  rest  of  the  day  ?  In  the  case  of  the 
mud-builders,  this  interim  of  course  gives  the  mud 
a  chance  to  harden,  but  are  we  justified  in  crediting 
them  with  this  forethought  ?    ■ 

Such  skill  and  intelligence  as  a  bird  seems  to  dis- 
play in  the  building  of  its  nest,  and  yet  at  times 
such  stupidity !  I  have  known  a  phcebe-bird  to  start 
four  nests  at  once,  and  work  more  or  less  upon  all 
of  them.  She  had  deserted  the  ancestral  sites  under 
the  shelving  rocks  and  come  to  a  new  porch,  upon 
the  plate  of  which  she  started  her  four  nests.  She 
blundered  because  her  race  had  had  Httle  or  no 
experience  with  porches.  There  were  four  or  more 
places  upon  the  plate  just  alike,  and  whichever 
one  of  these  she  chanced  to  strike  with  her  loaded 
beak  she  regarded  as  the  right  one.  Her  instinct 
served  her  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  it  did  not 
enable  her  to  discriminate  between  those  rafters. 
Where  a  little  original  intelligence  should  have 
come  into  play  she  was  deficient.  Her  progenitors 
had  built  under  rocks  where  there  was  little  chance 

168 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND   REFLCT? 

for  mistakes  of  this  sort,  and  they  had  learned 
through  ages  of  experience  to  blend  the  nest  with 
its  surroundings,  by  the  use  of  moss,  the  better  to 
conceal  it.  My  phoebe  brought  her  moss  to  the  new 
timbers  of  the  porch,  where  it  had  precisely  the 
opposite  effect  to  what  it  had  under  the  gray  mossy 
rocks. 

I  was  amused  at  the  case  of  a  robin  that  recently 
came  to  my  knowledge.  The  bird  built  its  nest  in 
the  south  end  of  a  rude  shed  that  covered  a  table  at 
a  railroad  terminus  upon  which  a  locomotive  was 
frequently  turned.  When  her  end  of  the  shed  was 
turned  to  the  north  she  built  another  nest  in  the 
temporary  south  end,  and  as  the  reversal  of  the 
shed  ends  continued  from  day  to  day,  she  soon  had 
two  nests  with  two  sets  of  eggs.  When  I  last  heard 
from  her,  she  was  consistently  sitting  on  that  par- 
ticular nest  which  happened  to  be  for  the  time  be- 
ing in  the  end  of  the  shed  facing  toward  the  south. 
The  bewildered  bird  evidently  had  had  no  experi- 
ence with  the  tricks  of  turn-tables ! 

An  intelligent  man  once  told  me  that  crabs  could 
reason,  and  this  was  his  proof :  In  hunting  for  crabs 
in  shallow  water,  he  found  one  that  had  just  cast 
its  shell,  but  the  crab  put  up  just  as  brave  a  fight 
as  ever,  though  of  course  it  was  powerless  to  inflict 
any  pain;  as  soon  as  the  creature  found  that  its 
bluff  game  did  not  work,  it  offered  no  further  re- 
sistance.   Now  I  should  as  soon  say  a  wasp  rea- 

169 


WAYS   OF   NATURE 

soned  because  a  stingless  drone,  or  male,  when  you 
capture  him,  will  make  all  the  motions  with  its 
body,  curving  and  thrusting,  that  its  sting-equipped 
fellows  do.  This  action  is  from  an  inherited  in- 
stinct, and  is  purely  automatic.  The  wasp  is  not 
putting  up  a  bluff  game;  it  is  really  trying  to  sting 
you,  but  has  not  the  weapon.  The  shell-less  crab 
quickly  reacts  at  your  approach,  as  is  its  nature 
to  do,  and  then  quickly  ceases  its  defense  because 
in  its  enfeebled  condition  the  impulse  of  defense 
is  feeble  also.  Its  surrender  was  on  physiological, 
not  upon  rational  grounds. 

Thus  do  we  without  thinking  impute  the  higher 
faculties  to  even  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  Hfe. 
Much  in  our  own  Hves  is  purely  automatic  —  the 
quick  reaction  to  appropriate  stimuh,  as  when  we 
ward  off  a  blow,  or  dodge  a  missile,  or  make  our- 
selves agreeable  to  the  opposite  sex ;  and  much 
also  is  inherited  or  unconsciously  imitative. 

Because  man,  then,  is  half  animal,  shall  we  say 
that  the  animal  is  half  man  ?  This  seems  to  be  the 
logic  of  some  people.  The  animal  man,  while  re- 
taining much  of  his  animahty,  has  evolved  from  it 
higher  faculties  and  attributes,  while  our  four-footed 
kindred  have  not  thus  progressed. 

Man  is  undoubtedly  of  animal  origin,  but  his 
rise  occurred  when  the  principle  of  variation  was 
much  more  active,  when  the  forms  and  forces  of 
nature  were  much  more  youthful  and  plastic,  when 

170 


DO  ANIMALS  THINK  AND  REFLECT? 

the  seething  and  fermenting  of  the  vital  fluids  were 
at  a  high  pitch  in  the  far  past,  and  it  was  high  tide 
with  the  creative  impulse.  The  world  is  aging,  and, 
no  doubt,  the  power  of  initiative  in  Nature  is  be- 
coming less  and  less.  I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  the 
worm  no  longer  aspires  to  be  man. 


X 

A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

PROBABLY  I  have  become  unusually  cautious 
of  late  about  accepting  offhand  all  I  read  in 
print  on  subjects  of  natural  history.  I  take  much  of 
it  with  a  Hberal  pinch  of  salt.  Newspaper  reading 
tends  to  make  one  cautious  —  and  who  does  not 
read  newspapers  in  these  days  ?  One  of  my  critics 
says,  apropos  of  certain  recent  strictures  of  mine 
upon  some  current  nature  writers,  that  I  discredit 
whatever  I  have  not  myself  seen;  that  I  belong  to 
that  class  of  observers  "whose  view-point  is  nar- 
rowed to  the  limit  of  their  own  personal  experience.'* 
This  were  a  grievous  fault  if  it  were  true,  so  much 
we  have  to  take  upon  trust  in  natural  history  as  well 
as  in  other  history,  and  in  life  in  general.  "Mr. 
Burroughs  might  have  remembered,"  says  another 
critic  discussing  the  same  subject,  "that  nobody 
has  seen  quite  so  many  things  as  everybody."  How 
true !  If  I  have  ever  been  guilty  of  denying  the  truth 
of  what  everybody  has  seen,  my  critic  has  just 
ground  for  complaint.  I  was  conscious,  in  the  paper 
referred  to,^  of  denying  only  the  truth  of  certain 

1  Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1903. 
173 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

things  that  one  man  alone  had  reported  having 
seen,  —  things  so  at  variance  not  only  with  my  own 
observations,  but  with  those  of  all  other  observers 
and  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  animal  psy- 
chology, that  my  "  will  to  beheve,"  always  easy  to 
move,  balked  and  refused  to  take  a  step. 

In  matters  of  belief  in  any  field,  it  is  certain  that 
the  scientific  method,  the  method  of  proof,  is  not  of 
equal  favor  with  all  minds.  Some  persons  believe 
what  they  can  or  must,  others  what  they  would.  One 
person  accepts  what  agrees  with  his  reason  and 
experience,  another  what  is  agreeable  to  his  or 
her  fancy.  The  grounds  of  probability  count  much 
with  me ;  the  tone  and  quality  of  the  witness  count 
for  much.  Does  he  ring  true.''  Is  his  eye  single? 
Does  he  see  out  of  the  back  of  his  head  ^  —  that  is, 
does  he  see  on  more  than  one  side  of  a  thing  .'^  Is 
he  in  love  with  the  truth,  or  with  the  strange,  the 
bizarre  ?  Last  of  all,  my  own  experience  comes  in 
to  correct  or  to  modify  the  observations  of  others. 
If  what  you  report  is  antecedently  improbable,  I 
shall  want  concrete  proof  before  accepting  it,  and 
I  shall  cross-question  your  witness  sharply.  If  you 
tell  me  you  have  seen  apples  and  acorns,  or  pears 
and  plums,  growing  upon  the  same  tree,  I  shall  dis- 
credit you.  The  thing  has  never  been  known  and 
is  contrary  to  nature.  But  if  you  tell  me  you  have 
seen  a  peach  tree  bearing  nectarines,  or  have  known 
a  nectarine-stone  to  produce  a  peach  tree,  I  shall 

174 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

still  want  to  cross-question  you  sharply,  but  I  may 
believe  you.  Such  things  have  happened.  Or  if 
you  tell  me  that  you  have  seen  an  old  doe  with 
horns,  or  a  hen  with  spurs,  or  a  male  bird  incubat- 
ing and  singing  on  the  nest,  unusual  as  the  last 
occurrence  is,  I  shall  not  dispute  you.  I  will  concede 
that  you  may  have  seen  a  white  crow  or  a  white 
blackbird  or  a  white  robin,  or  a  black  chipmunk 
or  a  black  red  squirrel,  and  many  other  departures 
from  the  usual  in  animal  life ;  but  I  cannot  share  the 
conviction  of  the  man  who  told  me  he  had  seen  a 
red  squirrel  curing  rye  before  storing  it  up  in  its 
den,  or  of  the  writer  who  believes  the  fox  will  ride 
upon  the  back  of  a  sheep  to  escape  the  hound,  or 
of  another  writer  that  he  has  seen  the  blue  heron 
chumming  for  fish.  Even  if  you  aver  that  you 
have  seen  a  woodpecker  running  down  the  trunk 
of  a  tree  as  well  as  up,  I  shall  be  sure  you  have 
not  seen  correctly.  It  is  the  nuthatch  and  not  the 
woodpecker  that  hops  up  and  down  and  around 
the  trees.  It  is  easy  to  transcend  any  man's  experi- 
ence; not  so  easy  to  transcend  his  reason.  "  Nobody 
has  seen  so  many  things  as  everybody,"  yet  a  dozen 
men  cannot  see  any  farther  than  one,  and  the  truth 
is  not  often  a  matter  of  majorities.  If  you  tell  me 
any  incident  in  the  hfe  of  bird  or  beast  that  implies 
the  possession  of  what  we  mean  by  reason,  I  shall 
be  very  skeptical. 

Am  I  guilty,  then,  as  has  been  charged,  of  pre- 

175 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

ferring  the  deductive  method  of  reasoning  to  the 
more  modern  and  more  scientific  inductive  method  ? 
But  I  doubt  if  the  inductive  method  would  avail 
one  in  trying  to  prove  that  the  old  cow  really  jumped 
over  the  moon.  We  do  deny  certain  things  upon 
general  principles,  and  affirm  others.  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  rooster  ever  laid  an  egg,  or  that  a 
male  tiger  ever  gave  milk.  If  your  alleged  fact  con- 
tradicts fundamental  principles,  I  shall  beware  of 
it;  if  it  contradicts  universal  experience,  I  shall 
probe  it  thoroughly.  A  college  professor  wrote  me 
that  he  had  seen  a  crow  blackbird  catch  a  small 
fish  and  fly  away  with  it  in  its  beak.  Now  I  have 
never  seen  anything  of  the  kind,  but  I  know  of  no 
principle  upon  which  I  should  feel  disposed  to 
question  the  truth  of  such  an  assertion.  I  have 
myself  seen  a  crow  blackbird  kill  an  English  spar- 
row. Both  proceedings  I  think  are  very  unusual, 
but  neither  is  antecedently  improbable.  If  the  pro- 
fessor had  said  that  he  saw  the  blackbird  dive  head 
first  into  the  water  for  the  fish,  after  the  manner  of 
the  kingfisher,  I  should  have  been  very  skeptical. 
He  only  saw  the  bird  rise  up  from  the  edge  of  the 
water  with  the  wriggling  fish  in  its  mouth.  It  had 
doubtless  seized  it  in  shallow  water  near  the  shore. 
But  I  should  discredit  upon  general  principles  the 
statement  of  the  woman  who  related  with  much  de- 
tail how  she  and  her  whole  family  had  seen  a  pair 
"of  small  brown  birds"  carry  their   half -fledged 

176 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

young  from  their  nest  in  a  low  busli,  where  there 
was  danger  from  cats,  to  a  new  nest  which  they  had 
just  finished  in  the  top  of  a  near-by  tree!  Could 
any  person  who  knows  the  birds  credit  such  a  tale  ? 
The  bank-teller  throws  out  the  counterfeit  coin  or 
bill  because  his  practiced  eye  and  touch  detect  the 
fraud  at  once.  On  similar  grounds  the  experienced 
observer  rejects  all  such  stories  as  the  above.  Dar- 
win quotes  an  authority  for  the  statement  that  our 
ruffed  grouse  makes  its  drumming  sound  by  striking 
its  wings  together  over  its  back.  A  recent  writer 
says  the  sound  is  not  made  with  the  wings  at  all, 
but  is  made  with  the  voice,  just  as  a  rooster  crows. 
Every  woodsman  knows  that  neither  statement  is 
true,  and  he  knows  it,  not  on  general  principles,  but 
from  experience  —  he  has  seen  the  grouse  drum. 

Birds  that  are  not  flycatchers  sometimes  take 
insects  in  the  air;  they  do  it  clumsily,  but  they  get  the 
bug.  On  the  other  hand,  flycatchers  sometimes  eat 
fruit.  I  have  seen  the  kingbird  carry  off  raspber- 
ries. ^All  such  facts  are  matters  of  observation.  In 
the  search  for  truth  we  employ  both  the  deductive 
and  the  inductive  methods;  we  deduce  principles 
from  facts,  and  we  test  alleged  facts  by  principles. 

The  other  day  an  intelligent  woman  told  me  this 
about  a  canary-bird  :  The  bird  had  a  nest  with 
young  in  the  corner  of  her  cage ;  near  by  were  some 
other  birds  in  a  cage  —  I  forget  what  they  were; 
they  had  a  full  view  of  all  the  domestic  affairs  of  the 

177 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

canary.  This  publicity  she  evidently  did  not  like,  for 
she  tore  out  of  the  paper  that  covered  the  bottom  of 
her  cage  a  piece  as  large  as  one's  hand  and  wove  it 
into  the  wires  so  as  to  make  a  screen  against  her 
inquisitive  neighbors.  My  informant  evidently  be- 
lieved this  story.  It  was  agreeable  to  her  fancies  and 
feelings.  But  see  the  difficulties  in  the  way.  How 
could  the  bird  with  its  beak  tear  out  a  broad  piece 
of  paper  ?  then,  how  could  it  weave  it  into  the  wires 
of  its  cage?  Furthermore,  the  family  of  birds  to 
which  the  canary  belongs  are  not  weavers  ;  they 
build  cup-shaped  nests,  and  they  have  had  no  use 
for  screens  or  covers,  and  they  never  have  made 
them.  Just  what  was  the  truth  about  the  matter  I 
cannot  say,  but  if  we  know  anything  about  animal 
psychology,  we  know  that  was  not  the  truth.  It  is 
always  risky  to  attribute  to  an  animal  any  act  its 
ancestors  could  not  have  performed. 

Again,  things  are  reported  as  facts  that  are  not 
so  much  contrary  to  reason  as  contrary  to  all  expe- 
rience, and  with  these,  too,  I  have  my  difficulties. 
A  recent  writer  upon  our  wild  life  says  he  has  dis- 
covered that  the  cowbird  watches  over  its  young 
and  assists  the  foster-parents  in  providing  food 
for  them  —  an  observation  so  contrary  to  all  that 
we  know  of  parasitical  birds,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  that  no  real  observer  can  credit  the  state- 
ment. Our  cowbird  has  been  under  observation  for 
a  hundred  years  or  more ;  every  dweller  in  the  coun- 

178 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

try  must  see  one  or  more  young  cowbirds  being  fed 
by  their  foster-parents  every  season,  yet  no  com- 
petent observer  has  ever  reported  any  care  of  the 
young  bird  by  its  real  parent.  If  this  were  true,  it 
would  make  the  cowbird  only  half  parasitical  —  an 
unheard-of  phenomenon. 

The  same  writer  tells  this  incident  about  a  grouse 
that  had  a  nest  near  his  cabin.  One  morning  he 
heard  a  strange  cry  in  the  direction  of  the  nest,  and 
taking  the  path  that  led  to  it,  he  met  the  grouse 
running  toward  him  with  one  wing  pressed  close  to 
her  side,  and  fighting  off  two  robber  crows  with  the 
other.  Under  the  closed  wing  the  grouse  was  carry- 
ing an  egg,  which  she  had  managed  to  save  from  the 
ruin  of  her  nest.  The  bird  was  coming  to  the  hermit 
for  succor.  Now,  am  I  skeptical  about  such  a  story, 
put  down  in  apparent  good  faith  in  a  book  of  natural 
history  as  a  real  occurrence,  because  I  have  never 
seen  the  like.''  No;  I  am  skeptical  because  the  in- 
cident is  so  contrary  to  all  that  we  know  about 
grouse  and  all  other  wild  birds.  Our  behef  in  nearly 
all  matters  takes  the  Hne  of  least  resistance,  and  it  is 
easier  for  me  to  beheve  that  the  writer  deceived 
himself,  than  that  such  a  thing  ever  happened.  In 
the  first  place,  a  grouse  could  not  pick  up  an  egg 
with  her  wing  when  crows  were  trying  to  rob  her, 
and,  in  the  second  place,  she  would  not  think  far 
enough  to  do  it  if  she  had  the  power.  What  was  she 
going  to  do  with  the  egg  ?  Bring  it  to  the  hermit  for 

179 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

his  breakfast  ?  This  last  supposition  is  just  as  rea- 
sonable as  any  part  of  the  story.  A  grouse  will  not 
readily  leave  her  unfledged  young,  but  she  will  leave 
her  eggs  when  disturbed  by  man  or  beast  with 
apparent  unconcern. 

It  is  the  rarest  thing  in  the  world  that  real 
observers  see  any  of  these  starthng  and  exceptional 
things  in  nature.  Thoreau  saw  none.  White  saw 
none.  Charles  St.  John  saw  none.  John  Muir 
reports  none,  Audubon  none.  It  is  always  your 
untrained  observer  that  has  his  poser,  his  shower 
of  frogs  or  hzards,  or  his  hoop  snakes,  and  the  hke. 
The  impossible  things  that  country  people  see  or 
hear  of  would  make  a  book  of  wonders.  In  some 
places  fishermen  believe  that  the  loon  carries  its 
egg  under  its  wing  till  it  hatches,  and  one  would  say 
that  they  are  in  a  position  to  know.  So  they  are. 
But  opportunity  is  only  half  the  problem ;  the  verify- 
ing mind  is  the  other  half.  One  of  our  writers  of 
popular  nature  books  relates  this  curious  incident  of 
"  animal  surgery  "  among  wild  ducks.  He  discovered 
two  eider  ducks  swimming  about  a  fresh-water  pond 
and  acting  queerly,  "  dipping  their  heads  under 
water  and  keeping  them  there  for  a  minute  or  more 
at  a  time."  He  later  discovered  that  the  ducks  had 
large  mussels  attached  to  their  tongues,  and  that 
they  were  trying  to  get  rid  of  them  by  drowning 
them.  The  birds  had  discovered  that  the  salt-water 
mussel  cannot  live  in  fresh  water.    Now  am  I  to 

180 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

accept  this  story  without  question  because  I  find  it 
printed  in  a  book  ?  In  the  first  place,  is  it  not  most 
remarkable  that  if  the  ducks  had  discovered  that 
the  bivalves  could  not  five  in  fresh  water,  they 
should  not  also  have  discovered  that  they  could  not 
five  in  the  air  ?  In  fact,  that  they  would  die  as  soon 
in  the  air  as  in  the  fresh  water  ?^  See  how  much 
trouble  the  ducks  could  have  saved  themselves  by 
going  and  sitting  quietly  upon  the  beach,  or  putting 
their  heads  under  their  wings  and  going  to  sleep 
on  the  wave.  Oysters  are  often  laid  down  in  fresh 
water  to  "  fatten  "  before  being  sent  to  market,  and 
probably  mussels  would  thrive  for  a  short  time  in 
fresh  water  equally  well.  In  the  second  place,  a 
duck's  tongue  is  a  very  short  and  stiff  affair,  and  is 
fixed  in  the  lower  mandible  as  in  a  trough.  Ducks 
do  not  protrude  the  tongue  when  they  feed;  they 
cannot  protrude  it ;  and  if  a  duck  can  crush  a  mus- 
sel-shell with  its  beak,  what  better  position  could  it 
have  the  bivalve  in  than  fast  to  the  tongue  between 
the  upper  and  the  lower  mandible  ?  The  story  is 
certainly  a  very  "  fishy"  one.  In  all  such  cases  the 
mind  follows  the  line  of  least  resistance.  If  the 
ducks  were  deliberately  holding  their  bills  under 
water,  it  is  easier  to  believe  that  they  did  it  because 
they  thereby  found  some  relief  from  pain,  than  that 
they  knew  the  bivalves  would  let  go  their  hold 

^  I  have  tried  the  experiment  on  two  ordinary  clams,  and  they 
both  died  on  the  third  day. 

181 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

sooner  in  fresh  water  than  in  salt  or  than  in  the  air. 
A  duck's  mouth  held  open  and  the  tongue  pinched 
by  a  shell-fish  would  doubtless  soon  be  in  a  feverish 
and  abnormal  condition,  which  cool  water  would 
tend  to  alleviate.  One  is  unable  to  see  how  the 
ducks  could  have  acquired  the  kind  of  human  ex- 
perimental knowledge  attributed  to  them.  A  per- 
son might  learn  such  a  secret,  but  surely  not  a  duck. 
In  discovering  and  in  eluding  its  enemies,  and  in 
many  other  ways,  the  duck's  wits  are  very  sharp, 
but  to  attribute  to  them  a  knowledge  of  the  virtues 
of  fresh  water  over  salt  in  a  certain  unusual  emer- 
gency —  an  emergency  that  could  not  have  occurred 
to  the  race  of  ducks,  much  less  to  individuals  often 
enough  for  a  special  instinct  to  have  been  developed 
to  meet  it  —  is  to  make  them  entirely  human. 

The  whole  idea  of  animal  surgery  which  the 
incident  impUes  —  such  as  mending  broken  legs 
with  clay,  salving  wounds  with  pitch,  or  resorting 
to  bandages  or  amputations  —  is  preposterous.  Sick 
or  wounded  animals  will  often  seek  rehef  from  pain 
by  taking  to  the  water  or  to  the  mud,  or  maybe  to 
the  snow,  just  as  cows  will  seek  the  pond  or  the 
bushes  to  escape  the  heat  and  the  flies,  and  that  is 
about  the  extent  of  their  surgery.  The  dog  Hcks 
liis  wound;  it  no  doubt  soothes  and  relieves  it. 
The  cow  licks  her  calf;  she  licks  him  into  shape; 
it  is  her  instinct  to  do  so.  That  tongue  of  hers  is 
a  currycomb,  plus  warmth  and  moisture  and  flexi- 

182 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

bility.  The  cat  always  carries  her  kittens  by  the 
back  of  the  neck;  it  is  her  best  way  to  carry  them, 
though  I  do  not  suppose  this  act  is  the  result  of 
experiment  on  her  part. 

A  chimney  swift  has  taken  up  her  abode  in  my 
study  chimney.  At  intervals,  day  or  night,  when  she 
hears  me  in  the  room,  she  makes  a  sudden  flapping 
and  drumming  sound  with  her  wings  to  scare  me 
away.  It  is  a  very  pretty  little  trick  and  quite  amus- 
ing. If  you  appear  above  the  opening  of  the  top  of  a 
chimney  where  a  swift  is  sitting  on  her  nest,  she  will 
try  to  drum  you  away  in  the  same  manner.  I  do 
not  suppose  there  is  any  thought  or  calculation  in 
her  behavior,  any  more  than  there  is  in  her  nest-build- 
ing, or  any  other  of  her  instinctive  doings.  It  is  prob- 
ably as  much  a  reflex  act  as  that  of  a  bird  when  she 
turns  her  eggs,  or  feigns  lameness  or  paralysis,  to 
lure  you  away  from  her  nest,  or  as  the  "playing  pos- 
sum "  of  a  rose-bug  or  potato-bug  when  it  is  disturbed . 

One  of  the  writers  referred  to  above  relates  with 
much  detail  tliis  astonishing  thing  of  the  Canada 
lynx:  He  saw  a  pack  of  them  trailing  their  game  — 
a  hare  —  through  the  winter  woods,  not  only  hunting 
in  concert,  but  tracking  their  quarry.  Now  any  can- 
did and  informed  reader  will  balk  at  this  story,  for 
two  reasons:  (1)  the  cat  tribe  do  not  hunt  by  scent, 
but  by  sight,  —  they  stalk  or  waylay  their  game ;  (2) 
they  hunt  singly,  they  are  all  sohtary  in  their  habits, 
they  are  probably  the  most  unsocial  of  the  carnivora, 

183 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

— they  prowl,  they  listen,  they  bide  their  time.  Wolves 
often  hunt  in  packs.  I  have  no  evidence  that  foxes 
do,  and  if  the  cats  ever  do,  it  is  a  most  extraordi- 
nary departure.  A  statement  of  such  an  exceptional 
occurrence  should  always  put  one  on  his  guard.  In 
the  same  story  the  lynx  is  represented  as  making 
curious  antics  in  the  air  to  excite  the  curiosity  of  a 
band  of  caribou,  and  thus  lure  one  of  them  to  its 
death  at  the  teeth  and  claws  of  the  waiting  hidden 
pack.  This  also  is  so  uncatlike  a  proceeding  that 
no  woodsman  could  ever  credit  it.  Hunters  on  the 
plains  sometimes  "flag"  deer  and  antelope,  and  I 
have  seen  even  a  loon  drawn  very  near  to  a  bather 
in  the  water  who  was  waving  a  small  red  flag.  But 
none  of  our  wild  creatures  use  lures,  or  decoys,  or 
disguises.  This  would  involve  a  process  of  reason- 
ing quite  beyond  them. 

Many  instances  have  been  recorded  of  animals 
seeking  the  protection  of  man  when  pursued  by 
their  deadly  enemies.  I  heard  of  a  rat  which,  when 
hunted  by  a  weasel,  rushed  into  a  room  where  a 
man  was  sleeping,  and  took  refuge  in  the  bed  at  his 
feet.  I  heard  Mr.  Thompson  Seton  tell  of  a  young 
pronghorn  buck  that  was  vanquished  by  a  rival, 
and  so  hotly  pursued  by  its  antagonist  that  it  sought 
shelter  amid  his  horses  and  wagons.  On  another 
occasion  Mr.  Seton  said  a  jack  rabbit  pursued  by 
a  weasel  upon  the  snow  sought  safety  under  his  sled. 
In  all  such  cases,  if  the  frightened  animal  really 

184 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

rushed  to  man  for  protection,  that  act  would  show 
a  degree  of  reason.  The  animal  must  think,  and 
weigh  the  pros  and  cons.  But  I  am  con\dnced  that 
the  truth  about  such  cases  is  this :  The  greater  fear 
drives  out  the  lesser  fear;  the  animal  loses  its  head, 
and  becomes  obHvious  to  everything  but  the  enemy 
that  is  pursuing  it.  The  rat  was  so  terrified  at  the 
demon  of  a  weasel  that  it  had  but  one  impulse,  and 
that  was  to  hide  somewhere.  Doubtless  had  the  bed 
been  empty,  it  would  have  taken  refuge  there  just 
the  same.  How  could  an  animal  know  that  a  man 
will  protect  it  on  special  occasions,  when  ordinarily 
it  has  exactly  the  opposite  feehng  ?  A  deer  hotly 
pursued  by  a  hound  might  rush  into  the  barn-yard 
or  into  the  open  door  of  the  barn  in  sheer  despera- 
tion of  uncontrollable  terror.  Then  we  should  say 
the  creature  knew  the  farmer  would  protect  it,  and 
every  woman  who  read  the  incident,  and  half  the 
men,  would  believe  that  that  thought  was  in  the 
deer's  mind.  When  the  hunted  deer  rushes  into 
the  lake  or  pond,  it  does  so,  of  course,  with  a  view 
to  escape  its  pursuers,  and  wherever  it  seeks  refuge 
this  is  its  sole  purpose.  I  can  easily  fancy  a  bird 
pursued  by  a  hawk  darting  into  an  open  door  or 
window,  not  with  the  thought  that  the  inmates  of 
the  house  will  protect  it,  but  in  a  panic  of  absolute 
terror.  Its  fear  is  then  centred  upon  something 
behind  it,  not  in  front  of  it. 

When  an  animal  does  something  necessary  to  its 

185 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

self-preservation,  or  to  the  continuance  of  its  species, 
it  probably  does  not  think  about  it  as  a  person  would, 
any  more  than  the  plant  or  tree  thinks  about  the 
light  when  it  bends  toward  it,  or  about  the  moisture 
when  it  sends  down  its  tap-root.  Touch  the  tail  of 
a  porcupine  ever  so  hghtly,  and  it  springs  up  Hke  a 
trap  and  your  hand  is  stuck  with  quills.  I  do  not 
suppose  there  is  any  more  thinking  about  the  act,  or 
any  more  conscious  exercise  of  will-power,  than  there 
is  in  a  trap.  An  outward  stimulus  is  apphed  and  the 
reaction  is  quick.  Does  not  man  wink,  and  dodge, 
and  sneeze,  and  laugh,  and  cry,  and  blush,  and  fall  in 
love,  and  do  many  other  things  without  thought  or 
will  ?  I  do  not  suppose  the  birds  think  about  migrat- 
ing, as  man  does  when  he  migrates ;  they  simply  obey 
an  inborn  impulse  to  move  south  or  north,  as  the 
case  may  be.  They  do  not  think  about  the  great 
lights  upon  the  coast  that  blaze  out  with  a  fatal  fas- 
cination in  their  midnight  paths.  If  they  had  inde- 
pendent powers  of  thought,  they  would  avoid  them. 
But  the  lighthouse  is  comparatively  a  new  thing  in 
the  life  of  birds,  and  instinct  has  not  yet  taught  them 
to  avoid  it.  To  adapt  means  to  an  end  is  an  act  of 
intelligence,  but  that  intelligence  may  be  inborn  and 
instinctive  as  in  the  animals,  or  it  may  be  acquired 
and  therefore  rational  as  in  man. 

"  Surely,"  said  a  woman  to  me,  "  when  a  cat  sits 
watching  at  a  mouse-hole,  she  has  some  image  in  her 
mind  of  the  mouse  in  its  hole  ?  "    Not  in  any  such 

186 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

sense  as  we  have  when  we  think  of  the  same  subject. 
The  cat  has  either  seen  the  mouse  go  into  the  hole, 
or  else  she  smells  him ;  she  knows  he  is  there  through 
her  senses,  and  she  reacts  to  that  impression.  Her 
instinct  prompts  her  to  hunt  and  to  catch  mice ;  she 
does  n't  need  to  think  about  them  as  we  do  about 
the  game  we  hunt;  Nature  has  done  that  for  her  in 
the  shape  of  an  inborn  impulse  that  is  awakened 
by  the  sight  or  smell  of  mice.  We  have  no  ready  way 
to  describe  her  act  as  she  sits  intently  by  the  hole 
but  to  say,  *'  The  cat  thinks  there  is  a  mouse  there," 
while  she  is  not  thinking  at  all,  but  simply  watch- 
ing, prompted  to  it  by  her  inborn  instinct  for  mice. 

The  cow's  mouth  will  water  at  the  sight  of  her 
food  when  she  is  hungry.  Is  she  thinking  about  it  ? 
No  more  than  you  are  when  your  mouth  waters  as 
your  full  dinner-plate  is  set  down  before  you.  Cer- 
tain desires  and  appetites  are  aroused  through  sight 
and  smell  without  any  mental  cognition.  The  sexual 
relations  of  the  animals  also  illustrate  this  fact. 

We  know  that  the  animals  do  not  think  in  any 
proper  sense  as  we  do,  or  have  concepts  and  ideas, 
because  they  have  no  language.  To  be  sure,  a  deaf 
mute  thinks  without  language  because  a  human 
being  has  the  intelligence  which  language  implies, 
or  which  was  begotten  in  his  ancestors  by  its  use 
through  long  ages.  Not  so  with  the  lower  animals. 
They  are  Kke  very  young  children  in  this  respect; 
they  have  impressions,  perceptions,  emotions,  but 

187 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

not  ideas.  The  child  perceives  things,  discriminates 
things,  knows  its  mother  from  a  stranger,  is  angry, 
or  glad,  or  afraid,  long  before  it  has  any  language 
or  any  proper  concepts.  Animals  know  only  through 
their  senses,  and  this  "knowledge  is  restricted  to 
things  present  in  time  and  space."  Reflection,  or  a 
return  upon  themselves  in  thought,  of  this  they  are 
not  capable.  Their  only  language  consists  of  vari- 
ous cries  and  calls,  expressions  of  pain,  alarm,  joy, 
love,  anger.  They  communicate  with  one  another, 
and  come  to  share  one  another's  mental  or  emo- 
tional states,  through  these  cries  and  calls.  A  dog 
barks  in  various  tones  and  keys,  each  of  which  ex- 
presses a  different  feeling  in  the  dog.  I  can  always 
tell  when  my  dog  is  barking  at  a  snake;  there  is 
something  peculiar  in  the  tone.  The  hunter  knows 
when  liis  hound  has  driven  the  fox  to  hole  by  a 
change  in  his  baying.  The  lowing  and  bellowing  of 
horned  cattle  are  expressions  of  several  different 
things.  The  crow  has  many  caws,  that  no  doubt 
convey  various  meanings.  The  cries  of  alarm  and 
distress  of  the  birds  are  understood  by  all  the 
wild  creatures  that  hear  them;  a  feehng  of  alarm 
is  conveyed  to  them  —  an  emotion,  not  an  idea. 

How  could  a  crow  tell  his  fellows  of  some  future 
event,  or  pf  some  experience  of  the  day  ?  How  could 
he  tell  him  this  thing  is  dangerous,  this  is  harmless, 
save  by  his  actions  in  the  presence  of  those  things  ? 
Or  how  tell  of  a  newly  found  food  supply  save  by 

188 


A  PINCH  OF  SALT 

flying  eagerly  to  it  ?  A  fox  or  a  wolf  could  warn  its 
fellow  of  the  danger  of  poisoned  meat  by  showing 
alarm  in  the  presence  of  the  meat.  Such  meat  would 
no  doubt  have  a  peculiar  odor  to  the  keen  scent  of 
the  fox  or  the  wolf.  Animals  that  Hve  in  communi- 
ties, such  as  bees  and  beavers,  cooperate  with  each 
other  without  language,  because  they  form  a  sort  of 
organic  unity,  and  what  one  feels  all  the  others  feel. 
One  spirit,  one  purpose,  fills  the  community. 

It  is  said  on  good  authority  that  prairie-dogs  will 
not  permit  weeds  or  tall  grass  to  grow  about  their 
burrows,  as  these  afford  cover  for  coyotes  and  other 
enemies  to  stalk  them.  If  they  cannot  remove  these 
screens,  they  will  leave  the  place.  And  yet  they  will 
sometimes  allow  a  weed  such  as  the  Norse  nettle  or 
the  Mexican  poppy  to  grow  on  the  mound  at  the 
mouth  of  the  den  where  it  will  afford  shade  and  not 
obstruct  the  view.  At  first  thought  this  conduct  may 
look  hke  a  matter  of  calculation  and  forethought, 
but  it  is  doubtless  the  result  of  an  instinct  that 
has  been  developed  in  the  tribe  by  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  with  any  given  rodent  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  experience.  It  is  an  inherited  fear  of 
every  weed  or  tuft  of  grass  that  might  conceal  an 
enemy. 

I  am  told  that  prairie  wolves  will  dig  up  and  eat 
meat  that  has  been  poisoned  and  then  buried,  when 
they  will  not  touch  it  if  left  on  the  surface.  In  such 
a  case  the  ranchmen  think  the  wolf  has  been  out- 

189 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

wilted ;  but  the  truth  probably  is  that  there  was  no 
calculation  in  the  matter;  the  soil  drew  out  or 
dulled  the  smell  of  the  poison  and  of  the  man's 
hand,  and  so  allayed  the  wolf's  suspicions. 

I  suppose  that  when  an  animal  practices  decep- 
tion, as  when  a  bird  feigns  lameness  or  a  broken 
wing  to  decoy  you  away  from  her  nest  or  her  young, 
it  is  quite  unconscious  of  the  act.  It  takes  no  thought 
about  the  matter.  In  tr3dng  to  call  a  hen  to  his  side, 
a  rooster  will  often  make  believe  he  has  food  in  his 
beak,  when  the  pretended  grain  or  insect  may  be 
only  a  pebble  or  a  bit  of  stick.  He  picks  it  up  and 
then  drops  it  in  sight  of  the  hen,  and  calls  her  in 
his  most  persuasive  manner.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
in  such  cases  the  rooster  is  conscious  of  the  fraud 
he  is  practicing.  His  instinct,  under  such  circum- 
stances, is  to  pick  up  food  and  call  the  attention  of 
the  hen  to  it,  and  when  no  food  is  present,  he  in- 
stinctively picks  up  a  pebble  or  a  stick.  His  main 
purpose  is  to  get  the  hen  near  him,  and  not  to  feed 
her.  When  he  is  intent  only  on  feeding  her,  he 
never  offers  her  a  stone  instead  of  bread. 

We  have  only  to  think  of  the  animals  as  habitually 
in  a  condition  analogous  to,  or  identical  with,  the 
unthinking  and  involuntary  character  of  much  of 
our  own  Hves.  They  are  creatures  of  routine.  They 
are  wholly  immersed  in  the  unconscious,  involun- 
tary nature  out  of  which  we  rise,  and  above  which 
our  higher  Hves  go  on. 

'     190 


XI 

THE   LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF 
NATURE 

THE  literary  treatment  of  natural  history  themes 
is,  of  course,  quite  different  from  the  scientific 
treatment,  and  should  be  so.  The  former,  compared 
with  the  latter,  is  Hke  free-hand  drawing  compared 
with  mechanical  drawing.  Literature  aims  to  give 
us  the  truth  in  a  way  to  touch  our  emotions,  and  in 
some  degree  to  satisfy  the  enjoyment  we  have  in  the 
H\dng  reaHty.  The  hterary  artist  is  just  as  much  in 
love  with  the  fact  as  is  his  scientific  brother,  only  he 
makes  a  different  use  of  the  fact,  and  his  interest  in 
it  is  often  of  a  non-scientific  character.  His  method 
is  synthetic  rather  than  analytic.  He  deals  in  gen- 
eral, and  not  in  technical  truths,  —  truths  that  he 
arrives  at  in  the  fields  and  woods,  and  not  in  the 
laboratory. 

The  essay-naturahst  observes  and  admires  ;  the 
scientific  naturahst  collects.  One  brings  home  a 
bouquet  from  the  woods;  the  other,  specimens  for 
his  herbarium.  The  former  would  enhst  your  sym- 
pathies and  arouse  your  enthusiasm ;  the  latter 
would  add  to  your  store  of  exact  knowledge.    The 

191 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

one  is  just  as  shy  of  over-coloring  or  falsifying  his 
facts  as  the  other,  only  he  gives  more  than  facts,  — 
he  gives  impressions  and  analogies,  and,  as  far  as 
possible,  shows  you  the  live  bird  on  the  bough. 

The  hterary  and  the  scientific  treatment  of  the 
dog,  for  instance,  will  differ  widely,  not  to  say  radi- 
cally, but  they  will  not  differ  in  one  being  true  and 
the  other  false.  Each  will  be  true  in  its  own  way. 
One  will  be  suggestive  and  the  other  exact;  one 
will  be  strictly  objective,  but  literature  is  always 
more  or  less  subjective.  Literature  aims  to  invest  its 
subject  with  a  human  interest,  and  to  this  end  stirs 
our  sympathies  and  emotions.  Pure  science  aims 
to  convince  the  reason  and  the  understanding  alone. 
Note  Maeterlinck's  treatment  of  the  dog  in  a  late 
magazine  article,  probably  the  best  thing  on  our 
four-footed  comrade  that  English  literature  has  to 
show.  It  gives  one  pleasure,  not  because  it  is  all  true 
as  science  is  true,  but  because  it  is  so  tender,  human, 
and  sympathetic,  without  being  false  to  the  essen- 
tial dog  nature;  it  does  not  make  the  dog  do  impos- 
sible things.  It  is  not  natural  history,  it  is  hterature; 
it  is  not  a  record  of  observations  upon  the  manners 
and  habits  of  the  dog,  but  reflections  upon  him  and 
his  relations  to  man,  and  upon  the  many  problems, 
from  the  human  point  of  view,  that  the  dog  must 
master  in  a  brief  time:  the  distinctions  he  must 
figure  out,  the  mistakes  he  must  avoid,  the  riddles  of 
fife  he  must  read  in  his  dumb  dog  way.  Of  course,  as 

192 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

a  matter  of  fact,  the  dog  is  not  compelled  "in  less 
than  five  or  six  weeks  to  get  into  his  mind,  taking 
shape  within  it,  an  image  and  a  satisfactory  concep- 
tion of  the  universe."  No,  nor  in  five  or  six  years. 
Strictly  speakings  he  is  not  capable  of  conceptions  at 
all,  but  only  of  sense  impressions ;  his  sure  guide  is 
instinct  —  not  blundering  reason.  The  dog  starts 
with  a  fund  of  knowledge,  which  man  acquires 
slowly  and  painfully.  But  all  this  does  not  trouble 
one  in  reading  of  MaeterHnck's  dog.  Our  interest  is 
awakened,  and  our  sympathies  are  moved,  by  seeing 
the  world  presented  to  the  dog  as  it  presents  itself 
to  us,  or  by  putting  ourselves  in  the  dog's  place.  It 
is  not  false  natural  history,  it  is  a  fund  of  true 
human  sentiment  awakened  by  the  contemplation 
of  the  dog's  life  and  character. 

MaeterHnck  does  not  ascribe  human  powers  and 
capacities  to  his  dumb  friend,  the  dog;  he  has  no 
incredible  tales  of  its  sagacity  and  wit  to  relate ;  it  is 
only  an  ordinary  bull  pup  that  he  describes,  but  he 
makes  us  love  it,  and,  through  it,  all  other  dogs,  by 
his  loving  analysis  of  its  trials  and  tribulations,  and 
its  devotion  to  its  god,  man.  In  like  manner,  in  John 
Muir's  story  of  liis  dog  Stickeen,  —  a  story  to  go 
with  "  Rab  and  his  Friends,"  —  our  credulity  is 
not  once  challenged.  Our  sympathies  are  deeply 
moved  because  our  reason  is  not  in  the  least  out- 
raged. It  is  true  that  Muir  makes  his  dog  act  like  a 
human  being  under  the  press  of  great  danger;  but 

193 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  action  is  not  the  kind  that  involves  reason;  it 
only  implies  sense  perception,  and  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  Stickeen  does  as  his  master  bids 
him,  and  he  is  human  only  in  the  human  emotions 
of  fear,  despair,  joy,  that  he  shows. 

In  Mr.  Egerton  Young's  book,  called  "  My  Dogs 
of  the  Northland,"  I  find  much  that  is  interesting 
and  several  vivid  dog  portraits,  but  Mr.  Young  hu- 
manizes his  dogs  to  a  greater  extent  than  does  either 
Muir  or  Maeterlinck.  For  instance,  he  makes  his 
dog  Jack  take  special  delight  in  teasing  the  Indian 
servant  girl  by  walking  or  lying  upon  her  kitchen 
floor  when  she  had  just  cleaned  it,  all  in  revenge 
for  the  slights  the  girl  had  put  upon  him;  and  he 
gives  several  instances  of  the  conduct  of  the  dog 
which  he  thus  interprets.  Now  one  can  believe 
almost  anything  of  dogs  in  the  way  of  wit  about 
their  food,  their  safety,  and  the  Hke,  but  one  can- 
not make  them  so  entirely  human  as  dehberately  to 
plan  and  execute  the  kind  of  revenge  here  imputed 
to  Jack.  No  animal  could  appreciate  a  woman's 
pride  in  a  clean  kitchen  floor,  or  see  any  relation 
between  the  tracks  which  he  makes  upon  the  floor 
and  her  state  of  feeling  toward  himself.  Mr. 
Young's  facts  are  doubtless  all  right;  it  is  his  in- 
terpretation of  them  that  is  wrong. 

It  is  perfectly  legitimate  for  the  animal  story 
writer  to  put  himself  inside  the  animal  he  wishes 
to  portray,  and  tell  how  hfe  and  the  world  look  from 

194 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

that  point  of  view;  but  he  must  always  be  true  to 
the  facts  of  the  case,  and  to  the  Hnaited  inteUigence 
for  which  he  speaks. 

In  the  humanization  of  the  animals,  and  of  the 
facts  of  natural  history  which  is  supposed  to  be  the 
province  of  literature  in  this  field,  we  must  recog- 
nize certain  limits.  Your  facts  are  sufficiently  hu- 
manized the  moment  they  become  interesting,  and 
they  become  interesting  the  moment  you  relate 
them  in  any  way  to  our  lives,  or  make  them  sug- 
gestive of  what  we  know  to  be  true  in  other  fields 
and  in  our  own  experience.  Thoreau  made  his  bat- 
tle of  the  ants  interesting  because  he  made  it  illus- 
trate all  the  human  traits  of  courage,  fortitude, 
heroism,  self-sacrifice.  Burns's  mouse  at  once  strikes 
a  sympathetic  chord  in  us  without  ceasing  to  be  a 
mouse;  we  see  ourselves  in  it.  To  attribute  human 
motives  and  faculties  to  the  animals  is  to  carica- 
ture them ;  but  to  put  us  in  such  relation  with  them 
that  we  feel  their  kinship,  that  we  see  their  lives 
embosomed  in  the  same  iron  necessity  as  our  own, 
that  we  see  in  their  minds  a  humbler  manifestation 
of  the  same  psychic  power  and  intelligence  that 
culminates  and  is  conscious  of  itself  in  man,  — 
that,  I  take  it,  is  the  true  humanization. 

We  Hke  to  see  ourselves  in  the  nature  around  us. 
We  want  in  some  way  to  translate  these  facts  and 
laws  of  outward  nature  into  our  own  experiences; 
to  relate  our  observations  of  bird  or  beast  to  our 

195 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

own  lives.  Unless  they  beget  some  human  emotion 
in  me,  —  the  emotion  of  the  beautiful,  the  sublime, 

—  or  appeal  to  my  sense  of  the  fit,  the  permanent, 

—  unless  what  you  learn  in  the  fields  and  the  woods 
corresponds  in  some  way  with  what  I  know  of  my 
fellows,  I  shall  not  long  be  deeply  interested  in  it. 
I  do  not  want  the  animals  humanized  in  any  other 
sense.  They  all  have  human  traits  and  ways;  let 
those  be  brought  out  —  their  mirth,  their  joy,  their 
curiosity,  their  cunning,  their  thrift,  their  rela- 
tions, their  wars,  their  loves  —  and  all  the  springs 
of  their  actions  laid  bare  as  far  as  possible;  but  I  do 
not  expect  my  natural  history  to  back  up  the  Ten 
Commandments,  or  to  be  an  illustration  of  the  value 
of  training-schools  and  kindergartens,  or  to  afford 
a  commentary  upon  the  vanity  of  human  wishes. 
Humanize  your  facts  to  the  extent  of  making  them 
interesting,  if  you  have  the  art  to  do  it,  but  leave 
the  dog  a  dog,  and  the  straddle-bug  a  straddle-bug. 

Interpretation  is  a  favorite  word  with  some  re- 
cent nature  writers.  It  is  claimed  for  the  literary 
naturalist  that  he  interprets  natural  history.  The 
ways  and  doings  of  the  wild  creatures  are  exagger- 
ated and  misread  under  the  plea  of  interpretation. 
Now,  if  by  interpretation  we  mean  an  answer  to 
the  question,  *'  What  does  this  mean  ?  "  or,  "  What 
is  the  exact  truth  about  it  ?  "  then  there  is  but  one 
interpretation  of  nature,  and  that  is  the  scientific. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  the  fossils  in  the  rocks  }  or 

196 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

of  the  carving  and  sculpturing  of  the  landscape? 
or  of  a  thousand  and  one  other  things  in  the  organic 
and  inorganic  world  about  us  ?  Science  alone  can 
answer.  But  if  we  mean  by  interpretation  an  an- 
swer to  the  inquiry,  "What  does  this  scene  or  in- 
cident suggest  to  you  ?  how  do  you  feel  about  it  ?  " 
then  we  come  to  what  is  called  the  literary  or  poetic 
interpretation  of  nature,  which,  strictly  speaking, 
is  no  interpretation  of  nature  at  all,  but  an  interpre- 
tation of  the  writer  or  the  poet  himself.  The  poet 
or  the  essayist  tells  what  the  bird,  or  the  tree,  or 
the  cloud  means  to  him.  It  is  himself,  therefore, 
that  is  being  interpreted.  What  do  Ruskin's  writ- 
ings upon  nature  interpret  .^  They  interpret  Rus- 
kin  —  his  wealth  of  moral  and  ethical  ideas,  and 
his  wonderful  imagination.  Richard  Jefferies  tells 
us  how  the  flower,  or  the  bird,  or  the  cloud  is  re- 
lated to  his  subjective  life  and  experience.  It  means 
this  or  that  to  him;  it  may  mean  something  en- 
tirely different  to  another,  because  he  may  be  bound 
to  it  by  a  different  tie  of  association.  The  poet  fills 
the  lap  of  Earth  with  treasures  not  her  own  —  the 
riches  of  his  own  spirit;  science  reveals  the  trea- 
sures that  are  her  own,  and  arranges  and  appraises 
them. 

Strictly  speaking,  there  is  not  much  in  natural 
history  that  needs  interpreting.  We  explain  a  fact, 
we  interpret  an  oracle;  we  explain  the  action  and 
relation  of  physical  laws  and  forces,  we  interpret, 

197 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

as  well  as  we  can,  the  geologic  record.  Darwin 
sought  to  explain  the  origin  of  species,  and  to  in- 
terpret many  palseontological  phenomena.  We  ac- 
count for  animal  behavior  on  rational  grounds  of 
animal  psychology;  there  is  little  to  interpret.  Nat- 
ural history  is  not  a  cryptograph  to  be  deciphered, 
it  is  a  series  of  facts  and  incidents  to  be  observed 
and  recorded.  If  two  wild  animals,  such  as  the 
beaver  and  the  otter,  are  deadly  enemies,  there  is 
good  reason  for  it;  and  when  we  have  found  that 
reason,  we  have  got  hold  of  a  fact  in  natural  his- 
tory. The  robins  are  at  enmity  ^vith  the  jays  and 
the  crow  blackbirds  and  the  cuckoos  in  the  spring, 
and  the  reason  is,  these  birds  eat  the  robins'  eggs. 
When  we  seek  to  interpret  the  actions  of  the  ani- 
mals, we  are,  I  must  repeat,  in  danger  of  running 
into  all  kinds  of  anthropomorphic  absurdities,  by 
reading  their  lives  in  terms  of  our  own  thinking 
and  consciousness. 

A  man  sees  a  flock  of  crows  in  a  tree  in  a  state 
of  commotion;  now  they  all  caw,  then  only  one 
master  voice  is  heard,  presently  two  or  three  crows 
fall  upon  one  of  their  number  and  fell  him  to  the 
ground.  The  spectator  examines  the  victim  and 
finds  him  dead,  with  his  eyes  pecked  out.  He  in- 
terprets what  he  has  seen  as  a  court  of  justice;  the 
crows  were  trying  a  criminal,  and,  having  found 
him  guilty,  they  proceeded  to  execute  him.  The 
curious  instinct  which  often  prompts  animals  to  fall 

198 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

upon  and  destroy  a  member  of  the  flock  that  is  sick, 
or  hurt,  or  blind,  is  difficult  of  explanation,  but  we 
may  be  quite  sure  that,  whatever  the  reason  is,  the 
act  is  not  the  outcome  of  a  judicial  proceeding  in 
which  judge  and  jury  and  executioner  all  play  their 
proper  part.  Wild  crows  will  chase  and  maltreat 
a  tame  crow  whenever  they  get  a  chance,  just  why, 
it  would  be  hard  to  say.  But  the  tame  crow  has 
evidently  lost  caste  among  them.  I  have  what  I 
consider  good  proof  that  a  number  of  skunks  that 
were  wintering  together  in  their  den  in  the  ground 
fell  upon  and  killed  and  then  partly  devoured  one 
of  their  number  that  had  lost  a  foot  in  a  trap. 

Another  man  sees  a  fox  lead  a  hound  over  a  long 
railroad  trestle,  when  the  hound  is  caught  and  killed 
by  a  passing  train.  He  interprets  the  fact  as  a 
cunning  trick  on  the  part  of  the  fox  to  destroy  his 
enemy!  A  captive  fox,  held  to  his  kennel  by  a  long 
chain,  was  seen  to  pick  up  an  ear  of  corn  that  had 
fallen  from  a  passing  load,  chew  it  up,  scattering 
the  kernels  about,  and  then  retire  into  his  ken- 
nel. Presently  a  fat  hen,  attracted  by  the  corn, 
approached  the  hidden  fox,  whereupon  he  rushed 
out  and  seized  her.  This  was  a  shrewd  trick  on 
the  part  of  the  fox  to  capture  a  hen  for  his  dinner ! 
In  this,  and  in  the  foregoing  cases,  the  observer 
supplies  something  from  his  own  mind.  That  is 
what  he  or  she  would  do  under  like  conditions. 
True,  a  fox  does  not  eat  corn;  but  an  idle  one,  tied 

199 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

by  a  chain,  might  bite  the  kernels  from  an  ear  in 
a  mere  spirit  of  mischief  and  restlessness,  as  a  dog 
or  puppy  might,  and  drop  them  upon  the  ground; 
a  hen  would  very  likely  be  attracted  by  them,  when 
the  fox  would  be  quick  to  see  his  chance. 

Some  of  the  older  entomologists  believed  that  in 
a  colony  of  ants  and  of  bees  the  members  recog- 
nized one  another  by  means  of  some  secret  sign  or 
password.  In  all  cases  a  stranger  from  another 
colony  is  instantly  detected,  and  a  home  member 
as  instantly  known.  This  sign  or  password,  says 
Burmeister,  as  quoted  by  Lubbock,  *'  serves  to  pre- 
vent any  strange  bee  from  entering  into  the  same 
hive  without  being  immediately  detected  and  killed. 
It,  however,  sometimes  happens  that  several  hives 
have  the  same  signs,  when  their  several  members 
rob  each  other  with  impunity.  In  these  cases  the 
bees  whose  hives  suffer  most  alter  their  signs,  and 
then  can  immediately  detect  their  enemy."  The 
same  thing  was  thought  to  be  true  of  a  colony  of 
ants.  Others  held  that  the  bees  and  the  ants  knew 
one  another  individually,  as  men  of  the  same  town 
do !  Would  not  any  serious  student  of  nature  in  our 
day  know  in  advance  of  experiment  that  all  this 
was  childish  and  absurd  ?  Lubbock  showed  by 
numerous  experiments  that  bees  and  ants  did  not 
recognize  their  friends  or  their  enemies  by  either 
of  these  methods.  Just  how  they  did  do  it  he  could 
not  clearly  settle,  though  it  seems  as  if  they  were 

200 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

guided  more  by  the  sense  of  smell  than  by  anything 
else.  Maeterlinck  in  his  "Life  of  the  Bee"  has 
much  to  say  about  the  "  spirit  of  the  hive,"  and  it 
does  seem  as  if  there  were  some  mysterious  agent 
or  power  at  work  there  that  cannot  be  located  or 
defined. 

This  current  effort  to  interpret  nature  has  led  one 
of  the  well-known  prophets  of  the  art  to  say  that  in 
this  act  of  interpretation  one  "  must  struggle  against 
fact  and  law  to  develop  or  keep  his  own  individ- 
uahty."  This  is  certainly  a  curious  notion,  and  I 
think  an  unsafe  one,  that  the  student  of  nature 
must  struggle  against  fact  and  law,  must  ignore  or 
override  them,  in  order  to  give  full  swing  to  his 
own  individuality.  Is  it  himself,  then,  and  not  the 
truth  that  he  is  seeking  to  exploit  .^  In  the  field  of 
natural  history  we  have  been  led  to  think  the  point 
at  issue  is  not  man's  individuality,  but  correct  ob- 
servation —  a  true  report  of  the  wild  life  about  us. 
Is  one  to  give  free  rein  to  his  fancy  or  imagination ; 
to  see  animal  fife  with  his  *'  vision,"  and  not  with  his 
corporeal  eyesight;  to  hear  with  his  transcendental 
ear,  and  not  through  his  auditory  nerve  ?  This  may 
be  all  right  in  fiction  or  romance  or  fable,  but  why 
call  the  outcome  natural  history  ?  Why  set  it  down 
as  a  record  of  actual  observation  ?  Why  penetrate 
the  wilderness  to  interview  Indians,  trappers,  guides, 
woodsmen,  and  thus  seek  to  confirm  your  obser- 
vations, if  you  have  all  the  while  been  **  struggling 

201 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

against  fact  and  law,"  and  do  not  want  or  need 
confirmation  ?  If  nature  study  is  only  to  exploit 
your  own  individuality,  why  bother  about  what 
other  people  have  or  have  not  seen  or  heard  ?  Why, 
in  fact,  go  to  the  woods  at  all  ?  Why  not  sit  in  your 
study  and  invent  your  facts  to  suit  your  fancyings  ? 

My  sole  objection  to  the  nature  books  that  are 
the  outcome  of  this  proceeding  is  that  they  are  put 
forth  as  veritable  natural  history,  and  thus  mislead 
their  readers.  They  are  the  result  of  a  successful 
"struggle  against  fact  and  law"  in  a  field  where 
fact  and  law  should  be  supreme.  No  doubt  that, 
in  the  practical  affairs  of  fife,  one  often  has  a  strug- 
gle with  the  fact.  If  one's  bank  balance  gets  on 
the  negative  side  of  the  account,  he  must  struggle  to 
get  it  back  where  it  belongs ;  he  may  even  have  the 
help  of  the  bank's  attorney  to  get  it  there.  If  one 
has  a  besetting  sin  of  any  kind,  he  has  to  struggle 
against  that.  Life  is  a  struggle  anyhow,  and  we  are 
all  strugglers  —  struggling  to  put  the  facts  upon 
our  side.  But  the  only  struggle  the  real  nature  stu- 
dent has  with  facts  is  to  see  them  as  they  are,  and 
to  read  them  aright.  He  is  just  as  zealous  for  the 
truth  as  is  the  man  of  science.  In  fact,  nature  study 
is  only  science  out  of  school,  happy  in  the  fields 
and  woods,  loving  the  flower  and  the  animal  which 
it  observes,  and  finding  in  them  something  for  the 
sentiments  and  the  emotions  as  well  as  for  the  under- 
standing. 

202 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

With  the  nature  student,  the  human  interest  in  the 
wild  creatures  —  by  which  I  mean  our  interest  in 
them  as  Hving,  struggling  beings  —  dominates  the 
scientific  interest,  or  our  interest  in  them  merely  as 
subjects  for  comparison  and  classification. 

Gilbert  White  was  a  rare  combination  of  the 
nature  student  and  the  man  of  science,  and  his  book 
is  one  of  the  minor  English  classics.  Richard  Jef- 
feries  was  a  true  nature  lover,  but  his  interests  rarely 
take  a  scientific  turn.  Our  Thoreau  was  in  Jove  with 
the  natural,  but  still  more  in  love  with  the  super- 
natural ;  yet  he  prized  the  fact,  and  his  books  abound 
in  dehghtful  natural  history  observations.  We  have 
a  host  of  nature  students  in  our  own  day,  bent  on 
plucking  out  the  heart  of  every  mystery  in  the  fields 
and  woods.  Some  are  dryly  scientific,  some  are  dull 
and  prosy,  some  are  sentimental,  some  are  sensa- 
tional, and  a  few  are  altogether  admirable.  Mr. 
Thompson  Seton,  as  an  artist  and  raconteur,  ranks 
by  far  the  highest  in  this  field,  but  in  reading  his 
works  as  natural  history,  one  has  to  be  constantly  on 
guard  against  his  romantic  tendencies. 

The  structure  of  animals,  their  colors,  their  orna- 
ments, their  distribution,  their  migrations,  all  have 
a  significance  that  science  may  interpret  for  us  if 
it  can,  but  it  is  the  business  of  every  observer  to 
report  truthfully  what  he  sees,  and  not  to  confound 
his  facts  with  his  theories. 

Why  does  the  cowbird  lay  its  egg  in  another  bird's 

203 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

nest?  Why  are  these  parasitical  birds  found  the 
world  over  ?  Who  knows  ?  Only  there  seems  to  be  a 
parasitical  principle  in  Nature  that  runs  all  through 
her  works,  in  the  vegetable  as  well  as  in  the  ani- 
mal kingdom.  Why  is  the  porcupine  so  tame  and 
stupid  ?  Because  it  does  not  have  to  hunt  for  its 
game,  and  is  self-armed  against  all  comers.  The 
struggle  of  hfe  has  not  developed  its  wits.  AMiy  are 
robins  so  abundant  ?  Because  they  are  so  adaptive, 
both  as  regards  their  food  and  their  nesting-habits. 
They  eat  both  fruit  and  insects,  and  will  nest  any- 
where —  in  trees,  sheds,  walls,  and  on  the  ground. 
Why  is  the  fox  so  cunning  ?  Because  the  discipline 
of  life  has  made  him  cunning.  Man  has  probably 
always  been  after  his  fur;  and  his  subsistence  has 
not  been  easily  obtained.  If  you  ask  me  why  the 
crow  is  so  cunning,  I  shall  be  put  to  it  for  an  ade- 
quate answer.  It  seems  as  if  nobody  could  ever  have 
wanted  his  skin  or  his  carcass,  and  his  diet  does  not 
compel  him  to  outwit  Hve  game,  as  does  that  of  the 
fox.  His  jet  black  plumage  exposes  him  alike  winter 
and  summer.  This  drawback  he  has  had  to  meet  by 
added  wit,  but  I  can  think  of  no  other  way  in  which 
he  is  handicapped.  I  do  not  know  that  he  has  any 
natural  enemies ;  yet  he  is  one  of  the  most  suspicious 
of  the  fowls  of  the  air.  Why  is  the  Canada  jay  so 
much  tamer  than  are  other  jays?  They  belong 
farther  north,  where  they  see  less  of  man;  they  are 
birds  of  the  wilderness;   they  are  often,  no  doubt, 

204 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

hard  put  to  it  for  food;  their  color  does  not  make 
them  conspicuous, — all  these  things,  no  doubt,  tend 
to  make  them  more  familiar  than  their  congeners. 
Why,  again,  the  chickadee  can  be  induced  to  perch 
upon  your  hand,  and  take  food  from  it,  more  readily 
than  can  the  nuthatch  or  the  woodpecker,  is  a  ques- 
tion not  so  easily  answered.  It  being  a  lesser  bird,  it 
probably  has  fewer  enemies  than  either  of  the  others, 
and  its  fear  would  be  less  in  proportion. 

Why  does  the  dog,  the  world  over,  use  his  nose 
in  covering  the  bone  he  is  hiding,  and  not  his  paw  ? 
Is  it  because  his  foot  would  leave  a  scent  that 
would  give  his  secret  away,  while  his  nose  does  not  ? 
He  uses  his  paw  in  digging  the  hole  for  the  bone, 
but  its  scent  in  this  case  would  be  obliterated  by 
his  subsequent  procedure. 

The  foregoing  is  one  way  to  interpret  or  explain 
natural  facts.  Everything  has  its  reason.  To  hit 
upon  this  reason  is  to  interpret  it  to  the  understand- 
ing. To  interpret  it  to  the  emotions,  or  to  the  moral 
or  to  the  aesthetic  sense,  that  is  another  matter. 

I  would  not  be  unjust  or  unsympathetic  toward 
this  current  tendency  to  exalt  the  lower  animals  into 
the  human  sphere.  I  would  only  help  my  reader  to 
see  things  as  they  are,  and  to  stimulate  him  to  love 
the  animals  as  animals,  and  not  as  men.  Nothing  is 
gained  by  self-deception.  The  best  discipline  of  life 
is  that  which  prepares  us  to  face  the  facts,  no  matter 
what  they  are.    Such  sweet  companionship  as  one 

205 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

may  have  with  a  dog,  simply  because  he  is  a  dog, 
and  does  not  invade  your  own  exclusive  sphere !  He 
is,  in  a  way,  like  your  youth  come  back  to  you,  and 
taking  form  —  all  instinct  and  joy  and  adventure. 
You  can  ignore  him,  and  he  is  not  offended;  you 
can  reprove  him,  and  he  still  loves  you ;  you  can  hail 
him,  and  he  bounds  with  joy;  you  can  camp  and 
tramp  and  ride  with  him,  and  his  interest  and  curi- 
osity and  adventurous  spirit  give  to  the  days  and  the 
nights  the  true  holiday  atmosphere.  With  him  you 
are  alone  and  not  alone;  you  have  both  compan- 
ionship and  solitude.  Who  would  have  him  more 
human  or  less  canine.'^  He  divines  your  thought 
through  his  love,  and  feels  your  will  in  the  glance  of 
your  eye.  He  is  not  a  rational  being,  yet  he  is  a  very 
susceptible  one,  and  touches  us  at  so  many  points 
that  we  come  to  look  upon  him  with  a  fraternal 
regard. 

I  suppose  we  should  not  care  much  for  natural 
history,  as  I  have  before  said,  or  for  the  study  of 
nature  generally,  if  we  did  not  in  some  way  find 
ourselves  there ;  that  is,  something  that  is  akin  to 
our  own  feelings,  methods,  and  intelligence.  W^e 
have  traveled  that  road,  we  find  tokens  of  ourselves 
on  every  hand ;  we  are  "  stuccoed  with  quadrupeds 
and  birds  all  over,'*  as  Whitman  says.  The  life- 
history  of  the  humblest  animal,  if  truly  told,  is 
profoundly  interesting.  If  we  could  know  all  that 
befalls  the  slow  moving  turtle  in  the  fields,  or  the 

206 


LITERARY  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

toad  that  stumbles  and  fumbles  along  the  roadside, 
our  sympathies  would  be  touched,  and  some  spark  of 
real  knowledge  imparted.  We  should  not  want  the 
lives  of  those  humble  creatures  "  interpreted "  after 
the  manner  of  our  sentimental  "  School  of  Nature 
Study,"  for  that  were  to  lose  fact  in  fable;  that 
were  to  give  us  a  stone  when  we  had  asked  for 
bread;  we  should  want  only  a  truthful  record  from 
the  point  of  view  of  a  wise,  loving,  human  eye,  such 
a  record  as,  say,  Gilbert  White  or  Henry  Thoreau 
might  have  given  us.  How  interesting  White  makes 
his  old  turtle,  hurrying  to  shelter  when  it  rains, 
or  seeking  the  shade  of  a  cabbage  leaf  when  the 
sun  is  too  hot,  or  prancing  about  the  garden  on 
tiptoe  in  the  spring  by  five  in  the  morning,  when 
the  mating  instinct  begins  to  stir  within  him !  Surely 
we  may  see  ourselves  in  the  old  tortoise. 

In  fact,  the  problem  of  the  essay-naturalist  always 
is  to  make  his  subject  interesting,  and  yet  keep 
strictly  within  the  bounds  of  truth. 

It  is  always  an  artist's  privilege  to  heighten  or 
deepen  natural  effects.  He  may  paint  us  a  more 
beautiful  woman,  or  a  more  beautiful  horse,  or  a 
more  beautiful  landscape,  than  we  ever  saw;  we  are 
not  deceived  even  though  he  outdo  nature.  We 
know  where  we  stand  and  where  he  stands;  we 
know  that  this  is  the  power  of  art.  If  he  is  writing 
an  animal  romance  like  Kipling's  story  of  the 
"  White  Seal, "  or  like  his  "  Jungle  Book,"  there  will 

207 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

be  nothing  equivocal  about  it,  no  mixture  of  fact  and 
fiction,  nothing  to  confuse  or  mislead  the  reader. 

We  know  that  here  is  the  Hght  that  never  was  on 
sea  or  land,  the  light  of  the  spirit.  The  facts  are  not 
falsified ;  they  are  transmuted.  The  aim  of  art  is  the 
beautiful,  not  over  but  through  the  true.  The  aim 
of  the  literary  naturalist  is  the  true,  not  over  but 
through  the  beautiful;  you  shall  find  the  exact  facts 
in  his  pages,  and  you  shall  find  them  possessed  of 
some  of  the  allurement  and  suggestiveness  that  they 
had  in  the  fields  and  woods.  Only  thus  does  his 
work  attain  to  the  rank  of  hterature. 


XII 
A   BEAVER'S   REASON 

ONE  of  our  well-known  natural  historians  thinks 
that  there  is  no  difference  between  a  man's 
reason  and  a  beaver's  reason  because,  he  says,  when 
a  man  builds  a  dam,  he  first  looks  the  ground  over, 
and  after  due  deliberation  decides  upon  his  plan,  and 
a  beaver,  he  avers,  does  the  same.  But  the  difference 
is  obvious.  Beavers,  under  the  same  conditions, 
build  the  same  kind  of  dams  and  lodges;  and  all 
beavers  as  a  rule  do  the  same.  Instinct  is  uniform 
in  its  worldngs ;  it  runs  in  a  groove.  Reason  varies 
endlessly  and  makes  endless  mistakes.  Men  build 
various  kinds  of  dams  and  in  various  kinds  of  places, 
with  various  kinds  of  material  and  for  various  kinds 
of  uses.  They  exercise  individual  judgment,  they 
invent  new  ways  and  seek  new  ends,  and  of  course 
often  fail. 

Every  man  has  his  own  measure  of  reason,  be  it 
more  or  less.  It  is  largely  personal  and  original  with 
him,  and  frequent  failure  is  the  penalty  he  pays  for 
this  gift. 

But  the  individual  beaver  has  only  the  inherited 
intelligence  of  his  kind,  with  such  slight  addition  as 

209 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

his  experience  may  have  given  him.  He  learns 
to  avoid  traps,  but  he  does  not  learn  to  improve 
upon  his  dam  or  lodge  building,  because  he  does  not 
need  to;  they  answer  his  purpose.  If  he  had  new 
and  growing  wants  and  aspirations  like  man,  why, 
then  he  would  no  longer  be  a  beaver.  He  reacts  to 
outward  conditions,  where  man  reflects  and  takes 
thought  of  things.  His  reason,  if  we  prefer  to  call  it 
such,  is  practically  inerrant.  It  is  bUnd,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  unconscious,  but  it  is  sure,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  adequate.  It  is  a  part  of  Hving  nature  in  a  sense 
that  man's  is  not.  If  it  makes  a  mistake,  it  is  such 
a  mistake  as  nature  makes  when,  for  instance,  a 
hen  produces  an  egg  within  an  egg,  or  an  egg  with- 
out a  yolk,  or  when  more  seeds  germinate  in  the  soil 
than  can  grow  into  plants. 

A  lower  animal's  intelHgence,  I  say,  compared 
with  man's  is  blind.  It  does  not  grasp  the  subject 
perceived  as  ours  does.  When  instinct  perceives  an 
object,  it  reacts  to  it,  or  not,  just  as  the  object  is,  or 
is  not,  related  to  its  needs  of  one  kind  or  another. 
In  many  ways  an  animal  is  hke  a  child.  What  comes 
first  in  the  child  is  simple  perception  and  memory 
and  association  of  memories,  and  these  make  up 
the  main  sum  of  an  animal's  intelligence.  The  child 
goes  on  developing  till  it  reaches  the  power  of  reflec- 
tion and  of  generalization  —  a  stage  of  mentaHty 
that  the  animal  never  attains  to. 

All  animal  life  is  specialized;   each  animal  is  an 

210 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

expert  in  its  own  line  of  work  —  the  work  of  its 
tribe.  Beavers  do  the  work  of  beavers,  they  cut 
down  trees  and  build  dams,  and  all  beavers  do  it 
alike  and  with  the  same  degree  of  untaught  skill. 
This  is  instinct,  or  unthinking  nature. 

Of  a  hot  day  a  dog  will  often  dig  down  to  fresh 
earth  to  get  cooler  soil  to  he  on.  Or  he  will  go  and 
he  in  the  creek.  All  dogs  do  these  things.  Now  if  the 
dog  were  seen  to  carry  stones  and  sods  to  dam  up  the 
creek  to  make  a  deeper  pool  to  lie  in,  then  he  would 
in  a  measure  be  imitating  the  beavers,  and  this,  in 
the  dog,  could  fairly  be  called  an  act  of  reason, 
because  it  is  not  a  necessity  of  the  conditions  of  his 
Ufe ;  it  would  be  of  the  nature  of  an  afterthought. 

All  animals  of  a  given  species  are  wise  in  their 
own  way,  but  not  in  the  way  of  another  species.  The 
robin  could  not  build  the  oriole's  nest,  nor  the  oriole 
build  the  robin's  nor  the  swallow's.  The  cunning:  of 
the  fox  is  not  the  cunning  of  the  coon.  The  squirrel 
knows  a  good  deal  more  about  nuts  than  the  rabbit 
does,  but  the  rabbit  would  live  where  the  squirrel 
would  die.  The  muskrat  and  the  beaver  build 
lodges  much  ahke,  that  is,  with  the  entrance  under 
water  and  an  inner  chamber  above  the  water,  and 
this  because  they  are  both  water-animals  with 
necessities  much  the  same. 

Now,  the  mark  of  reason  is  that  it  is  endlessly 
adaptive,  that  it  can  apply  itself  to  all  kinds  of  prob- 
lems, that  it  can  adapt  old  means  to  new  ends,  or 

211 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

new  means  to  old  ends,  and  is  capable  of  progressive 
development.  It  holds  what  it  gets,  and  uses  that  as 
a  fulcrum  to  get  more.  But  tliis  is  not  at  all  the 
way  of  animal  instinct,  which  begins  and  ends  as 
instinct  and  is  non-progressive. 

A  large  part  of  our  own  lives  is  instinctive  and 
void  of  thought.  We  go  instinctively  toward  the 
warmth  and  away  from  the  cold.  All  our  affections 
are  instinctive,  and  do  not  wait  upon  the  reason. 
Our  affinities  are  as  independent  of  our  reflection 
as  gravity  is.  Our  inherited  traits,  the  ties  of  race, 
the  spirit  of  the  times  in  which  we  Kve,  the  impres- 
sions of  youth,  of  cKmate,  of  soil,  of  our  surround- 
ings, —  all  influence  our  acts  and  often  determine 
them  without  any  conscious  exercise  of  judgment  or 
reason  on  our  part.  Then  habit  is  all-potent  with 
us,  temperament  is  potent,  health  and  disease  are 
potent.  Indeed,  the  amount  of  conscious  reason 
that  an  ordinary  man  uses  in  his  life,  compared  with 
the  great  unreason  or  blind  impulse  and  inborn 
tendency  that  impel  him,  is  like  his  artificial  lights 
compared  with  the  light  of  day  —  indispensable  on 
special  occasions,  but  a  feeble  matter,  after  all. 
Reason  is  an  artificial  light  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not 
one  with  the  light  of  nature,  and  in  the  sense  that 
men  possess  it  in  varying  degrees.  The  lower  ani- 
mals have  only  a  gleam  of  it  now  and  then.  They 
are  wise  as  the  plants  and  trees  are  wise,  and  are 
guided  by  their  inborn  tendencies. 

212 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

Is  instinct  resourceful  ?  Can  it  meet  new  condi- 
tions ?  Can  it  solve  a  new  problem  ?  If  so,  how 
does  it  differ  from  free  intelKgence  or  judgment  ?  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  up  to  a  certain  point  in- 
stinct is  resourceful.  Thus  a  Western  correspondent 
writes:  "At  three  different  times  I  have  pursued 
the  common  jack-rabbit  from  a  level  field,  when  the 
rabbit,  coming  to  a  furrow  that  ran  at  right  angles 
to  his  course,  jumped  into  it,  and  crouching  down, 
slowly  crept  away  to  the  end  of  the  furrow,  when  it 
jumped  out  and  ran  at  full  speed  again."  This  is 
a  good  example  of  the  resourcefulness  of  instinct 
—  the  instinct  to  escape  from  an  enemy  —  an  old 
problem  met  by  taking  advantage  of  an  unusual 
opportunity.  To  run,  to  double,  to  crouch,  to  hide, 
are  probably  all  reflex  acts  with  certain  animals 
when  hunted.  The  bird  when  pursued  by  a  hawk 
rushes  to  cover  in  a  tree  or  a  bush,  or  beneath  some 
object.  Last  summer  I  saw  a  bald  eagle  pursuing 
a  fish  hawk  that  held  a  fish  in  its  talons.  The 
hawk  had  a  long  start  of  the  eagle,  and  began 
mounting  upward,  screaming  in  protest  or  defiance 
as  it  mounted.  The  pirate  circled  far  beneath  it 
for  a  few  minutes,  and  then,  seeing  how  he  was 
distanced,  turned  back  toward  the  ocean,  so  that 
I  did  not  witness  the  Kttle  drama  in  the  air  that  I 
had  so  long  wished  to  see. 

A  wounded  wild  duck  suddenly  develops  much 
cunning  in  escaping  from  the  gunner  —  swimming 

213 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

under  water,  hiding  by  the  shore  with  only  the  end 
of  the  bill  in  the  air,  or  diving  and  seizing  upon 
some  object  at  the  bottom,  where  it  sometimes 
remains  till  Hfe  is  extinct. 

I  once  saw  some  farm-hands  try  to  capture  a 
fatted  calf  that  had  run  all  summer  in  a  partly 
wooded  field,  till  it  had  become  rather  wild.  As 
the  calf  refused  to  be  cornered,  the  farmer  shot  it 
with  his  rifle,  but  only  inflicted  a  severe  wound  in 
the  head.  The  calf  then  became  as  wild  as  a  deer, 
and  scaled  fences  in  much  the  manner  of  the  deer. 
When  cornered,  it  turned  and  broke  through  the 
line  in  sheer  desperation,  and  showed  wonderful 
resources  in  eluding  its  pursuers.  It  coursed  over 
the  hills  and  gained  the  mountain,  where  it  baffled 
its  pursuers  for  two  days  before  it  was  run  down 
and  caught.  All  such  cases  show  the  resources  of 
instinct,  the  instinct  of  fear. 

The  skill  of  a  bird  in  hiding  its  nest  is  very  great, 
as  is  the  cunning  displayed  in  keeping  the  secret 
afterward.  How  careful  it  is  not  to  betray  the  pre- 
cious locality  to  the  supposed  enemy !  Even  the  do- 
mestic turkey,  when  she  hides  her  nest  in  the  bush, 
if  watched,  approaches  it  by  all  manner  of  delays 
and  indirections,  and  when  she  leaves  it  to  feed, 
usually  does  so  on  the  wing.  I  look  upon  these  and 
kindred  acts  as  exhibiting  only  the  resourcefulness 
of  instinct. 

We  are  not  to  forget  that  the  resourcefulness 

214 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

and  flexibiKty  of  instinct  which  all  animals  show, 
some  more  and  some  less,  is  not  reason,  though  it 
is  doubtless  the  first  step  toward  it.  Out  of  it  the 
conscious  reason  and  intelKgence  of  man  probably 
have  been  evolved.  I  do  not  object  to  hearing  this 
variability  and  plasticity  of  instinct  called  the  twi- 
light of  mind  or  rudimentary  mentality.  It  is  that, 
or  something  like  that.  What  I  object  to  is  hearing 
those  things  in  animal  life  ascribed  to  reason  that 
can  be  easier  accounted  for  on  the  theory  of  instinct. 
I  must  differ  from  the  ornithologist  of  the  New 
York  Zoological  Park  when  he  says  in  a  recent 
paper  that  a  bird's  affection  for  her  young  is  not 
an  instinct,  an  uncontrollable  emotion,  but  I  quite 
agree  with  him  that  it  does  not  differ,  in  kind  at 
least,  from  the  emotion  of  the  human  mother.  In 
both  cases  the  affection  is  instinctive,  and  not  a 
matter  of  reason,  or  forethought,  or  afterthought  at 
all.  The  two  affections  differ  in  this:  that  one  is 
brief  and  transient,  and  the  other  is  deep  and  last- 
ing. Under  stress  of  circumstances  the  bird  will 
abandon  her  helpless  young,  while  the  human 
mother  will  not.  When  the  food  supply  fails,  the 
lower  animal  will  not  share  the  last  morsel  with  its 
young;  its  fierce  hunger  makes  it  forget  them.  Dur- 
ing the  cold,  wet  summer  of  1903  a  vast  number  of 
half -fledged  birds  —  orioles,  finches,  warblers  —  per- 
ished in  the  nest,  probably  from  scarcity  of  insect 
food  and  the  neglect  of  the  mothers  to  hover  them. 

215 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

In  interpreting  the  action  of  the  animals,  we  so 
often  do  the  thinking  and  reasoning  ourselves 
which  we  attribute  to  them.  Thus  Mr.  Beebe  in  the 
paper  referred  to  says :  "  Birds  have  early  learned  to 
take  clams  or  mussels  in  their  beaks  or  claws  at  low 
tide  and  carry  them  out  of  the  reach  of  the  water, 
so  that  at  the  death  of  the  mollusk,  the  relaxation 
of  the  adductor  muscle  would  permit  the  shell  to 
spring  open  and  afford  easy  access  to  the  inmate.'* 
No  doubt  the  advancing  tide  would  cause  the  bird 
to  carry  the  shell-fish  back  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
waves,  where  it  might  hope  to  get  at  its  meat,  but 
where  it  would  be  compelled  to  leave  the  shell  un- 
opened. But  that  the  bird  knew  the  fish  would 
die  there  and  that  its  shell  would  then  open  —  it 
is  in  such  particulars  that  the  observer  does  the 
thinking. 

Two  other  writers  upon  our  birds  have  stated 
that  pelicans  vdll  gather  in  flocks  along  the  shore, 
and  by  manoeuvring  and  beating  the  water  with 
their  wings,  will  drive  the  fish  into  the  shallows, 
where  they  easily  capture  them.  Here  again  the 
observer  thinks  for  the  observed.  The  pelicans  see 
the  fish  and  pursue  them,  without  any  plan  to  cor- 
ner them  in  shoal  water,  but  the  inevitable  result 
is  that  they  are  so  cornered  and  captured.  The 
fish  are  foolish,  but  the  pelicans  are  not  wise.  The 
wisdom  here  attributed  to  them  is  human  wisdom 
and  not  animal  vidsdom. 

216 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

To  observe  the  actions  of  the  lower  animals  with- 
out reading  our  own  thoughts  into  them  is  not  an  easy 
matter.  Mr.  Beebe  thinks  that  when  in  early 
spring  the  peacock,  in  the  Zoological  Park,  timidly 
erects  its  plumes  before  an  unappreciative  crow,  it 
is  merely  practicing  the  art  of  showing  off  its  gay 
plumes  in  anticipation  of  the  time  when  it  shall 
compete  with  its  rivals  before  the  females ;  in  other 
words,  that  it  is  rehearsing  its  part.  But  I  should 
say  that  the  peacock  struts  before  the  crow  or  be- 
fore spectators  because  it  can't  help  it.  The  sexual 
instinct  begins  to  flame  up  and  master  it.  The  fowl 
can  no  more  control  it  than  it  can  control  its  appetite 
for  food.  To  practice  beforehand  is  human.  Ani- 
mal practice  takes  the  form  of  spontaneous  play. 
The  mock  battles  of  two  dogs  or  of  other  animals 
are  not  conscious  practice  on  their  part,  but  are  play 
pure  and  simple,  the  same  as  human  games,  though 
their  value  as  training  is  obvious  enough. 

Animals  do  not  have  general  ideas;  they  receive 
impressions  through  their  various  senses,  to  which 
they  respond.  I  recently  read  in  manuscript  a  very 
clear  and  concise  paper  on  the  subject  of  animal 
thinking  compared  with  that  of  man,  in  which  the 
writer  says:  "There  is  a  rudimentary  abstraction 
before  language.  All  the  higher  animals  have  gen- 
eral ideas  of  '  good-f or-eating '  and  *  not-good-f or- 
eating,'  quite  apart  from  any  particular  objects  of 
which  either  of  these  qualities  happens  to  be  char- 

217 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

acteristic."  It  is  at  this  point,  I  think,  that  the 
writer  referred  to  goes  wrong.  The  animal  has  no 
idea  at  all  about  what  is  good  to  eat  and  what  is  not 
good;  it  is  guided  entirely  by  its  senses.  It  reacts 
to  the  stimuli  that  reach  it  through  the  sight  or 
smell,  usually  the  latter.  There  is  no  mental  process 
at  all  in  the  matter,  not  the  most  rudimentary  ; 
there  is  simple  reaction  to  stimuli,  as  strictly  so  as 
when  we  sneeze  on  taking  snuff.  Man  alone  has 
ideas  of  what  is  good  to  eat  and  what  is  not  good. 
When  a  fox  prowls  about  a  farmhouse,  he  has  no 
general  idea  that  there  are  eatable  things  there,  as 
the  essayist  above  referred  to  alleges.  He  is  simply 
following  his  nose;  he  smells  something  to  which  he 
responds.  We  think  for  him  when  we  attribute  to 
him  general  ideas  of  what  he  is  likely  to  find  at  the 
farmhouse.  But  when  a  man  goes  to  a  restaurant, 
he  follows  an  idea  and  not  his  nose,  he  compares  the 
different  viands  in  his  mind,  and  often  decides  be- 
forehand what  he  will  have.  There  is  no  agreement 
in  the  two  cases  at  all.  If,  when  the  bird  chooses  the 
site  for  its  nest,  or  the  chipmunk  or  the  woodchuck 
the  place  for  its  hole,  or  the  beaver  the  spot  for  its 
dam,  we  make  these  animals  think,  compare,  weigh, 
we  are  simply  putting  ourselves  in  their  place  and 
making  them  do  as  we  would  do  under  Uke  condi- 
tions. 

Animal  Ufe  parallels  human  life  at  many  points, 
but  it  is  in  another  plane.    Something  guides  the 

218 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

lower  animals,  but  it  is  not  thought;  something 
restrains  them,  but  it  is  not  judgment;  they  are 
provident  without  prudence;  they  are  active  with- 
out industry;  they  are  skillful  without  practice;  they 
are  wise  without  knowledge ;  they  are  rational  with- 
out reason;  they  are  deceptive  without  guile.  They 
cross  seas  without  a  compass,  they  return  home 
without  guidance,  they  communicate  without  lan- 
guage, their  flocks  act  as  a  unit  without  signals  or 
leaders.  When  they  are  joyful,  they  sing  or  they 
play;  when  they  are  distressed,  they  moan  or  they 
cry;  when  they  are  jealous,  they  bite  or  they  claw, 
or  they  strike  or  they  gore,  —  and  yet  I  do  not  sup- 
pose they  experience  the  emotions  of  joy  or  sorrow, 
or  anger  or  love,  as  we  do,  because  these  feelings  in 
them  do  not  involve  reflection,  memory,  and  what 
we  call  the  higher  nature,  as  with  us. 

The  animals  do  not  have  to  consult  the  almanac 
to  know  when  to  migrate  or  to  go  into  winter  quar- 
ters. At  a  certain  time  in  the  fall,  I  see  the  newts  all 
making  for  the  marshes;  at  a  certain  time  in  the 
spring,  I  see  them  all  returning  to  the  woods  again. 
At  one  place  where  I  walk,  I  see  them  on  the  rail- 
road track  wandering  up  and  down  between  the 
rails,  trying  to  get  across.  I  often  lend  them  a  hand. 
They  know  when  and  in  what  direction  to  go,  but 
not  in  the  way  I  should  know  under  the  same  cir- 
cumstances. I  should  have  to  learn  or  be  told  ;  they 
know  instinctively. 

219 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

We  marvel  at  what  we  call  the  wisdom  of  Nature, 
but  how  unlike  our  own !  How  blind,  and  yet  in  the 
end  how  sure !  How  wasteful,  and  yet  how  conserv- 
ing! How  helter-skelter  she  sows  her  seed,  yet  be- 
hold the  forest  or  the  flowery  plain.  Her  springs 
leap  out  everywhere,  yet  how  inevitably  their  waters 
find  their  way  into  streams,  the  streams  into  rivers, 
and  the  rivers  to  the  sea.  Nature  is  an  engineer 
without  science,  and  a  builder  without  rules. 

The  animals  follow  the  tides  and  the  seasons ;  they 
find  their  own;  the  fittest  and  the  luckiest  survive; 
the  struggle  for  life  is  sharp  with  them  all ;  birds  of 
a  feather  flock  together;  the  young  cowbirds  reared 
by  many  different  foster-parents  all  gather  in  flocks 
in  the  fall;  they  know  their  kind  —  at  least,  they 
are  attracted  by  their  kind. 

A  correspondent  asks  me  if  I  do  not  think  the 
minds  of  animals  capable  of  improvement.  Not  in 
the  strict  sense.  When  we  teach  an  animal  anything, 
we  make  an  impression  upon  its  senses  and  repeat 
this  impression  over  and  over,  till  we  establish  a 
habit.  We  do  not  bring  about  any  mental  devel- 
opment as  we  do  in  the  child ;  we  mould  and  stamp 
its  sense  memory.  It  is  like  bending  or  compressing 
a  vegetable  growth  till  it  takes  a  certain  form. 

The  human  animal  sees  through  the  trick,  he 
comprehends  it  and  does  not  need  the  endless  repe- 
tition. When  repetition  has  worn  a  path  in  our 
minds,  then  we,  too,  act  automatically,  or  without 

220 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

conscious  thought,  as  we  do,  for  instance,  in  form- 
ing the  letters  when  we  write. 

Wild  animals  are  trained,  but  not  educated. 
We  multiply  impressions  upon  them  without  add- 
ing to  their  store  of  knowledge,  because  they  can- 
not evolve  general  ideas  from  these  sense  impres- 
sions. Here  we  reach  their  hmitations.  A  bluebird 
or  a  robin  will  fight  its  reflected  image  in  the 
window-pane  of  a  darkened  room  day  after  day, 
and  never  master  the  delusion.  It  can  take  no  step 
beyond  the  evidence  of  its  senses  —  a  hard  step 
even  for  man  to  take.  You  may  train  your  dog  so 
that  he  will  bound  around  you  when  he  greets 
you  without  putting  his  feet  upon  you.  But  do  you 
suppose  the  fond  creature  ever  comes  to  know  why 
you  do  not  want  his  feet  upon  you  ?  If  he  does,  then 
he  takes  the  step  in  general  knowledge  to  which  I 
have  referred.  Your  cow,  tethered  by  a  long  rope 
upon  the  lawn,  learns  many  things  about  that  rope 
and  how  to  manage  it  that  she  did  not  know  when, 
she  was  first  tied,  but  she  can  never  know  why  she 
is  tethered,  or  why  she  is  not  to  crop  the  shrubbery, 
or  paw  up  the  turf,  or  reach  the  com  on  the  edge 
of  the  garden.  This  would  imply  general  ideas  or 
power  of  reflection.  You  might  punish  her  until 
she  was  afraid  to  do  any  of  these  things,  but  you 
could  never  enhghten  her  on  the  subject.  The  rudest 
savage  can,  in  a  measure,  be  enlightened,  he  can 
be  taught  the  reason  why  of  things,  but  an  animal 

221 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

cannot.  We  can  make  its  impulses  follow  a  rut,  so 
to  speak,  but  we  cannot  make  them  free  and  self- 
directing.  Animals  are  the  victims  of  habits  inher- 
ited or  acquired. 

I  was  told  of  a  fox  that  came  nightly  prowKng 
about  some  deadfalls  set  for  other  game.  The 
new-fallen  snow  each  night  showed  the  movements 
of  the  suspicious  animal;  it  dared  not  approach 
nearer  than  several  feet  to  the  deadfalls.  Then  one 
day  a  red-shouldered  hawk  seized  the  bait  in  one 
of  the  traps,  and  was  caught.  That  night  a  fox, 
presumably  the  same  one,  came  and  ate  such  parts 
of  the  body  of  the  hawk  as  protruded  from  beneath 
the  stone.  Now,  how  did  the  fox  know  that  the 
trap  was  sprung  and  was  now  harmless  ?  Did  not 
its  act  imply  something  more  than  instinct.^  We 
have  the  cunning  and  suspicion  of  the  fox  to  start 
with;  these  are  factors  already  in  the  problem  that 
do  not  have  to  be  accounted  for.  To  the  fox,  as  to 
the  crow,  anything  that  looks  hke  design  or  a  trap, 
anything  that  does  not  match  with  the  haphazard 
look  and  general  disarray  of  objects  in  nature,  will 
put  it  on  its  guard.  A  deadfall  is  a  contrivance  that 
is  not  in  keeping  with  the  usual  fortuitous  disarray 
of  sticks  and  stones  in  the  fields  and  woods.  The 
odor  of  the  man's  hand  would  also  be  there,  and 
this  of  itself  would  put  the  fox  on  its  guard.  But  a 
hawk  or  any  other  animal  crushed  by  a  stone,  with 
part  of  its  body  protruding  from  beneath  the  stone, 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

has  quite  a  different  air.  It  at  least  does  not  look 
threatening;  the  rock  is  not  impending;  the  open 
jaws  are  closed.  More  than  that,  the  smell  of  the 
man's  hand  would  be  less  apparent,  if  not  entirely 
absent.  The  fox  drew  no  rational  conclusions;  its 
instinctive  fear  was  allayed  by  the  changed  condi- 
tions of  the  trap.  The  hawk  has  not  the  fox's  cun- 
ning, hence  it  fell  an  easy  victim.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  cunning  of  the  fox  is  any  more  akin  to 
reason  than  is  the  power  of  smell  of  the  hound 
that  pursues  him.  Both  are  inborn,  and  are  quite 
independent  of  experience.  If  a  fox  were  deliber- 
ately to  seek  to  elude  the  hound  by  running  through 
a  flock  of  sheep,  or  by  following  the  bed  of  a 
shallow  stream,  or  by  taking  to  the  pubHc  high- 
way, then  I  think  we  should  have  to  credit  him 
with  powers  of  reflection.  It  is  true  he  often  does 
all  these  things,  but  whether  he  does  them  by 
chance,  or  of  set  purpose,  admits  of  doubt. 

The  cunning  of  a  fox  is  as  much  a  part  of  his 
inherited  nature  as  is  his  fleetness  of  foot.  All  the 
more  notable  fur-bearing  animals,  as  the  fox,  the 
beaver,  the  otter,  have  doubtless  been  persecuted 
by  man  and  his  savage  ancestors  for  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  years,  and  their  suspicion  of  traps  and 
lures,  and  their  skill  in  eluding  them,  are  the  accu- 
mulated inheritance  of  ages. 

In  denying  what  we  mean  by  thought  or  free 
intelligence   to  animals,  an  exception  should   un- 

223 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

doubtedly  be  made  in  favor  of  the  dog.  I  have  else- 
where said  that  the  dog  is  almost  a  human  product ; 
he  has  been  the  companion  of  man  so  long,  and  has 
been  so  loved  by  him,  that  he  has  come  to  partake, 
in  a  measure  at  least,  of  his  master's  nature.  If  the 
dog  does  not  at  times  think,  reflect,  he  does  some- 
thing so  Hke  it  that  I  can  find  no  other  name  for  it. 
Take  so  simple  an  incident  as  this,  which  is  of  com- 
mon occurrence:  A  collie  dog  is  going  along  the 
street  in  advance  of  its  master's  team.  It  comes  to 
a  point  where  the  road  forks;  the  dog  takes,  say, 
the  road  to  the  left  and  trots  along  it  a  few  rods, 
and  then,  half  turning,  suddenly  pauses  and  looks 
back  at  the  team.  Has  he  not  been  struck  by  the 
thought,  "  I  do  not  know  which  way  my  master  is 
going :  I  will  wait  and  see "  ?  If  the  dog  in  such 
cases  does  not  reflect,  what  does  he  do  ?  Can  we  find 
any  other  word  for  his  act  ?  To  ask  a  question  by 
word  or  deed  involves  some  sort  of  a  mental  pro- 
cess, however  rudimentary.  Is  there  any  other  ani- 
mal that  would  act  as  the  colKe  did  under  hke 
circumstances  ? 

A  Western  physician  writes  me  that  he  has  on 
three  different  occasions  seen  his  pointer  dog  be- 
have as  follows :  He  had  pointed  a  flock  of  quail, 
that  would  not  sit  to  be  flushed,  but  kept  running. 
Then  the  dog,  without  a  word  or  sign  from  his  mas- 
ter, made  a  long  detour  to  the  right  or  to  the  left 
around  the  retreating  birds,  headed  them  off,  and 

224 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

then  slowly  advanced,  facing  the  gunner,  till  he 
came  to  a  point  again,  with  the  quail  in  a  position 
to  be  flushed.  After  crediting  the  instinct  and  the 
training  of  the  dog  to  the  full,  such  an  act,  I  think, 
shows  a  degree  of  independent  judgment.  The  dog 
had  not  been  trained  to  do  that  particular  thing, 
and  took  the  initiative  of  his  own  accord. 

Many  authentic  stories  are  told  of  cats  which 
seem  to  show  that  they  too  have  profited  in  the 
way  of  added  intelligence  by  their  long  intercourse 
with  man.  A  lady  writing  to  me  from  New  York 
makes  the  following  discriminating  remarks  upon 
the  cat :  — 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  reason  which  you  ascribe 
for  the  semi-humanizing  of  the  dog,  his  long  inter- 
course with  man,  might  apply  in  some  degree  to 
the  cat.  But  it  is  necessary  to  be  very  fond  of  cats 
in  order  to  perceive  their  quahties.  The  dog  is 
*up  in  every  one's  face,'  so  to  speak  ;  always  in 
evidence ;  always  on  deck.  But  the  cat  is  a  shy, 
reserved,  exclusive  creature.  The  dog  is  the  humble 
friend,  follower,  imitator,  and  slave  of  man.  He 
will  hck  the  foot  that  kicks  him.  The  cat,  instead, 
will  scratch.  The  dog  begs  for  notice.  The  cat 
must  be  loved  much  and  courted  assiduously  be- 
fore she  will  blossom  out  and  humanize  under  the 
atmosphere  of  affection.  The  dog  seems  to  me  to 
have  the  typical  quahties  of  the  negro,  the  cat  of 
the  Indian.   She  is  indifferent  to  man,  cares  nothing 

225 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

for  him  unless  he  wins  her  by  special  and  consistent 
kindness,  and  throughout  her  long  domestication 
has  kept  her  wild  independence,  and  abiUty  to 
forage  for  herself  when  turned  loose,  whether  in 
forest  or  city  street.  It  is  when  she  is  much  loved 
and  petted  that  her  intelligence  manifests  itself,  in 
such  quiet  ways  that  an  indifferent  observer  will 
never  notice  them.  But  she  always  knows  who  is 
fond  of  her,  and  which  member  of  the  family  is 
fondest  of  her." 

The  correspondent  who  had  the  experience  with 
his  pointer  dog  relates  this  incident  about  his  blooded 
mare:  A  drove  of  horses  were  pasturing  in  a 
forty-acre  lot.  The  horses  had  paired  off,  as  horses 
usually  do  under  such  circumstances.  The  doctor's 
thoroughbred  mare  had  paired  with  another  mare 
that  was  totally  blind,  and  had  been  so  since  a  colt. 
Through  the  field  "  ran  a  little  creek  which  could 
not  well  be  crossed  by  the  horses  except  at  a  bridge 
at  one  end."  One  day  when  the  farmer  went  to  salt 
the  animals,  they  all  came  galloping  over  the  bridge 
and  up  to  the  gate,  except  the  blind  one ;  she  could 
not  find  the  bridge,  and  remained  on  the  other  side, 
whinnying  and  stamping,  while  the  others  were 
getting  their  salt  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  Presently 
the  blooded  mare  suddenly  left  her  salt,  made  her 
way  through  the  herd,  and  went  at  a  flying  gallop 
down  across  the  bridge  to  the  blind  animal.  Then 
she  turned  and  came  back,  followed  by  the  blind 

226 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

one.  The  doctor  is  convinced  that  his  mare  delib- 
erately went  back  to  conduct  her  blind  companion 
over  the  bridge  and  down  to  the  salt-Hck.  But  the 
act  may  be  more  simply  explained.  How  could  the 
mare  have  known  her  companion  was  blind  "^  What 
could  any  horse  know  about  such  a  disability  ?  The 
only  thing  implied  in  the  incident  is  the  attachment 
of  one  animal  for  another.  The  mare  heard  her 
mate  calling,  probably  in  tones  of  excitement  or 
distress,  and  she  flew  back  to  her.  Finding  her  all 
right,  she  turned  toward  the  salt  again  and  was  fol- 
lowed by  her  fellow.    Instinct  did  it  all. 

My  own  observation  of  the  wild  creatures  has 
revealed  nothing  so  near  to  human  thought  and 
reflection  as  is  seen  in  the  cases  of  the  collie  and 
pointer  dogs  above  referred  to.  The  nearest  to 
them  of  anything  I  can  now  recall  is  an  incident 
related  by  an  English  writer,  Mr.  Kearton.  In  one 
of  his  books,  Mr.  Kearton  relates  how  he  has  fre- 
quently fooled  sitting  birds  with  wooden  eggs.  He 
put  his  counterfeits,  painted  and  marked  like  the 
originals,  into  the  nests  of  the  song  thrush,  the 
blackbird,  and  the  grasshopper  warbler,  and  in  no 
case  was  the  imposition  detected.  In  the  warbler's 
nest  he  placed  dummy  eggs  twice  the  size  of  her 
own,  and  the  bird  proceeded  to  brood  them  without 
the  slightest  sign  of  suspicion  that  they  were  not  of 
her  own  laying. 

But  when  Mr.   Kearton  tried  his  counterfeits 

227 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

upon  a  ring  plover,  the  fraud  was  detected.  The 
plover  hammered  the  shams  with  her  bill  "in  the 
most  skeptical  fashion,"  and  refused  to  sit  down 
upon  them.  When  two  of  the  bird's  own  eggs  were 
returned  to  the  nest  and  left  there  with  two  wooden 
ones,  the  plover  tried  to  throw  out  the  shams,  but 
faihng  to  do  this,  "  reluctantly  sat  down  and  covered 
good  and  bad  ahke." 

Now,  can  the  action  of  the  plover  in  this  case  be 
explained  on  the  theory  of  instinct  alone  ?  The  bird 
could  hardly  have  had  such  an  experience  before. 
It  was  offered  a  counterfeit,  and  it  behaved  much 
as  you  or  I  would  have  done  under  like  conditions, 
although  we  have  the  general  idea  of  counterfeits, 
which  the  plover  could  not  have  had.  Of  course, 
everything  that  pertains  to  the  nest  and  eggs  of  a 
bird  is  very  vital  to  it.  The  bird  is  wise  about  these 
things  from  instinct.  Yet  the  other  birds  were  easily 
fooled.  We  do  not  know  how  nearly  perfect  Mr. 
Kearton's  imitation  eggs  were,  but  evidently  there 
was  some  defect  in  them  which  arrested  the  bird's 
attention.  If  the  incident  does  not  show  powers 
of  reflection  in  the  bird,  it  certainly  shows  keen 
powers  of  perception;  and  that  birds,  and  indeed 
all  animals,  show  varying  degrees  of  this  power, 
is  a  matter  of  common  observation.  I  hesitate, 
therefore,  to  say  that  Mr.  Kearton's  plover  showed 
anything  more  than  very  keen  instincts.  Among 
our  own  birds  there  is  only  one,  so  far  as  I  know, 

228 


A  BEAVER'S  REASON 

that  detects  the  egg  of  the  cowbird  when  it  is  laid 
in  the  bird's  nest,  and  that  is  the  yellow  warbler. 
All  the  other  birds  accept  it  as  their  own,  but  this 
warbler  detects  the  imposition,  and  proceeds  to  get 
rid  of  the  strange  egg  by  burying  it  under  a  new 
nest  bottom. 

Man  is  undoubtedly  of  animal  origin.  The  road 
by  which  he  has  come  out  of  the  dim  past  hes 
through  the  lower  animals.  The  germ  and  poten- 
tiahty  of  all  that  he  has  become  or  can  become  was 
sleeping  there  in  his  humble  origins.  Of  this  I  have 
no  doubt.  Yet  I  think  we  are  justified  in  saying 
that  the  difference  between  animal  intelligence  and 
human  reason  is  one  of  kind  and  not  merely  of 
degree.  Flying  and  walking  are  both  modes  of  loco- 
motion, and  yet  may  we  not  fairly  say  they  differ  in 
kind  ?  Reason  and  instinct  are  both  manifestations 
of  intelHgence,  yet  do  they  not  belong  to  different 
planes  ?  Intensify  animal  instinct  ever  so  much, 
and  you  have  not  reached  the  plane  of  reason.  The 
homing  instinct  of  certain  animals  is  far  beyond 
any  gift  of  the  kind  possessed  by  man,  and  yet  it 
seems  in  no  way  akin  to  reason.  Reason  heeds  the 
points  of  the  compass  and  takes  note  of  the  topo- 
graphy of  the  country,  but  what  can  animals  know 
of  these  things  ? 

And  yet  I  say  the  animal  is  father  of  the  man. 
Without  the  lower  orders,  there  could  have  been 
no  higher.    In  my  opinion,  no  miracle  or  special 

229 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

creation  is  required  to  account  for  man.  The  trans- 
formation of  force,  as  of  heat  into  light  or  elec- 
tricity, is  as  great  a  leap  and  as  mysterious  as  the 
transformation  of  animal  intelligence  into  human 
reason. 


XIII 
READING  THE  BOOK  OF  NATURE 

IN  studying  Nature,  the  important  thing  is  not 
so  much  what  we  see  as  how  we  interpret  what 
we  see.  Do  we  get  at  the  true  meaning  of  the  facts  ? 
Do  we  draw  the  right  inference  ?  The  fossils  in  the 
rocks  were  long  observed  before  men  drew  the  right 
inference  from  them.  So  with  a  hundred  other 
things  in  nature  and  hfe. 

During  May  and  a  part  of  June  of  1903,  a  drouth 
of  unusual  severity  prevailed  throughout  the  land. 
The  pools  and  marshes  nearly  all  dried  up.  Late 
in  June  the  rains  came  again  and  filled  them  up. 
Then  an  unusual  thing  happened:  suddenly,  for 
two  or  three  days  and  nights,  the  marshes  about  me 
were  again  vocal  with  the  many  voices  of  the  hyla, 
the  "peepers"  of  early  spring.  That  is  the  fact. 
Now,  what  is  the  interpretation  ?  With  me  the  peep- 
ers become  silent  in  early  May,  and,  I  suppose,  leave 
the  marshes  for  their  Hfe  in  the  woods.  Did  the 
drouth  destroy  all  their  eggs  and  young,  and  did 
they  know  this  and  so  come  back  to  try  again  ? 
How  else  shall  one  explain  their  second  appearance 
in  the  marshes  ?   But  how  did  they  know  of  the  de- 

231 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

struction  of  their  young,  and  how  can  we  account 
for  their  concerted  action  ?  These  are  difficulties  not 
easily  overcome.  A  more  rational  explanation  to 
me  is  tliis,  namely,  that  the  extreme  dryness  of  the 
woods  —  nearly  two  months  without  rain  —  drove 
the  little  frogs  to  seek  for  moisture  in  their  spring 
haunts,  where  in  places  a  little  water  would  be  pretty 
certain  to  be  found.  Here  they  were  holding  out, 
probably  hibernating  again,  as  such  creatures  do  in 
the  tropics  during  the  dry  season,  when  the  rains 
came,  and  here  again  they  sent  up  their  spring 
chorus  of  voices,  and,  for  aught  I  know,  once  more 
deposited  their  eggs.  This  to  me  is  much  more  like 
the  ways  of  Nature  with  her  creatures  than  is  the 
theory  of  the  frogs'  voluntary  return  to  the  swamps 
and  pools  to  start  the  season  over  again. 

The  birds  at  least  show  little  or  no  wit  when  a 
new  problem  is  presented  to  them.  They  have  no 
power  of  initiative.  Instinct  runs  in  a  groove,  and 
cannot  take  a  step  outside  of  it.  One  May  day  we 
started  a  meadowlark  from  her  nest.  There  were 
three  just  hatched  young  in  the  nest,  and  one  egg 
lying  on  the  ground  about  two  inches  from  the  nest. 
I  suspected  that  this  egg  was  infertile  and  that  the 
bird  had  had  the  sense  to  throw  it  out,  but  on  ex- 
amination it  was  found  to  contain  a  nearly  grown 
bird.  The  inference  was,  then,  that  the  egg  had 
been  accidentally  carried  out  of  the  nest  some  time 
when  the  sitting  bird  had  taken  a  sudden  flight, 

232 


READING  THE  BOOK  OF  NATURE 

and  that  she  did  not  have  the  sense  to  roll  or  carry 
it  back  to  its  place. 

There  is  another  view  of  the  case  which  no  doubt 
the  sentimental  "School  of  Nature  Study"  would 
eagerly  adopt :  A  very  severe  drouth  reigned  through- 
out the  land;  food  was  probably  scarce,  and  was 
becoming  scarcer  ;  the  bird  foresaw  her  inability 
to  care  for  four  young  ones,  and  so  reduced  the 
possible  number  by  ejecting  one  of  the  eggs  from 
the  nest.  This  sounds  pretty  and  plausible,  and  so 
credits  the  bird  with  the  wisdom  that  the  public  is 
so  fond  of  believing  it  possesses.  Something  Hke 
this  wisdom  often  occurs  among  the  hive  bees  in 
seasons  of  scarcity  ;  they  will  destroy  the  unhatched 
queens.  But  birds  have  no  such  foresight,  and  make 
no  such  calculations.  In  cold,  backward  seasons, 
I  think,  birds  lay  fewer  eggs  than  when  the  season 
is  early  and  warm,  but  that  is  not  a  matter  of  cal- 
culation on  their  part;  it  is  the  result  of  outward 
conditions. 

A  great  many  observers  and  nature  students  at 
the  present  time  are  possessed  of  the  notion  that 
the  birds  and  beasts  instruct  their  young,  train 
them  and  tutor  them,  much  after  the  human  man- 
ner. In  the  familiar  sight  of  a  pair  of  crows  for- 
aging with  their  young  about  a  field  in  summer, 
one  of  our  nature  writers  sees  the  old  birds  giving 
their  young  a  lesson  in  flying.  She  says  that  the 
most  important  thing  that  the  elders  had  to  do  was 

233 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

to  teach  the  youngsters  how  to  fly.  This  they  did 
by  circling  about  the  pasture,  giving  a  pecuHar  call 
while  they  were  followed  by  their  flock  —  all  but 
one.  This  was  a  bobtailed  crow,  and  he  did  not 
obey  the  word  of  command.  His  mother  took  note 
of  his  disobedience  and  proceeded  to  discipKne  him. 
He  stood  upon  a  big  stone,  and  she  came  down  upon 
him  and  knocked  him  off  his  perch.  "  He  squawked 
and  fluttered  his  wings  to  keep  from  falHng,  but  the 
blow  came  so  suddenly  that  he  had  not  time  to  save 
himself,  and  he  fell  flat  on  the  ground.  In  a  minute 
he  clambered  back  upon  his  stone,  and  I  watched 
him  closely.  The  next  time  the  call  came  to  fly  he 
did  not  Hnger,  but  went  with  the  rest,  and  so  long 
as  I  could  watch  him  he  never  disobeyed  again.'* 
I  should  interpret  tliis  fact  of  the  old  and  young 
crows  flying  about  a  field  in  summer  quite  differ- 
ently. The  young  are  fully  fledged,  and  are  already 
strong  flyers,  when  this  occurs.  They  do  not  leave 
the  nest  until  they  can  fly  well  and  need  no  tutor- 
ing. What  the  writer  really  saw  was  what  any  one 
may  see  on  the  farm  in  June  and  July:  she  saw 
the  parent  crows  foraging  with  their  young  in  a  field. 
The  old  birds  flew  about,  followed  by  their  brood, 
clamorous  for  the  food  which  their  parents  found. 
The  bobtailed  bird,  which  had  probably  met  with 
some  accident,  did  not  follow,  and  the  mother  re- 
turned to  feed  it;  the  young  crow  lifted  its  wings 
and  flapped  them,  and  in  its  eagerness  probably 

234 


READING  THE  BOOK  OF  NATURE 

fell  off  its  perch  ;  then  when  its  parent  flew  away, 
it  followed. 

I  think  it  highly  probable  that  the  sense  or  fac- 
ulty by  which  animals  find  their  way  home  over 
long  stretches  of  country,  and  which  keeps  them 
from  ever  being  lost  as  man  so  often  is,  is  a  faculty 
entirely  unhke  anything  man  now  possesses.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  faculty  that  guides  the 
birds  back  a  thousand  miles  or  more  to  their  old 
breeding-haunts.  In  caged  or  housed  animals  I 
fancy  this  faculty  soon  becomes  blunted.  President 
Roosevelt  tells  in  his  "Ranch  Life"  of  a  horse  he 
owned  that  ran  away  two  hundred  miles  across  the 
plains,  swimming  rivers  on  the  *way  to  its  old  home. 
It  is  very  certain,  I  think,  that  this  homing  feat  is 
not  accomplished  by  the  aid  of  either  sight  or  scent, 
for  usually  the  returning  animal  seems  to  follow 
a  comparatively  straight  line.  It  is,  or  seems  to 
be,  a  consciousness  of  direction  that  is  as  unerring 
as  the  magnetic  needle.  Reason,  calculation,  and 
judgment  err,  but  these  primary  instincts  of  the 
animal  seem  almost  infallible. 

In  Bronx  Park  in  New  York  a  grebe  and  a  loon 
lived  together  in  an  inclosure  in  which  was  a  large 
pool  of  water.  The  two  birds  became  much  at- 
tached to  each  other  and  were  never  long  separated. 
One  winter  day  on  which  the  pool  was  frozen  over, 
except  a  small  opening  in  one  end  of  it,  the  grebe 
dived  under  the  ice  and  made  its  way  to  the  far 

235 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

end  of  the  pool,  where  it  remained  swimming  about 
aimlessly  for  some  moments.     Presently  the  loon 
missed  its  companion,  and  with  an  apparent  look 
of  concern  dived  under  the  ice  and  joined  it  at  the 
closed  end  of  the  pool.     The  grebe  seemed  to  be 
in  distress  for  want  of  air.    Then  the  loon  settled 
upon  the  bottom,  and  with  lifted  beak  sprang  up 
with  much  force  against  the  ice,  piercing  it  with 
its  dagger-like  bill,  but  not  breaking  it.    Down  to 
the  bottom  it  went  again,  and  again  hurled  itself 
up  against  the  ice,  this  time  shattering  it  and  rising 
to  the  surface,  where  the  grebe  was  quick  to  follow. 
Now  it  looked  as  if  the  loon  had  gone  under  the  ice 
to  rescue  its  friend  from  a  dangerous  situation,  for 
had  not  the  grebe  soon  found  the  air,  it  must  have 
perished,  and  persons  who  witnessed  the  incident 
interpreted  it  in  this  way.    It  is  in  such  cases  that 
we  are  so  apt  to  read  our  human  motives  and  emo- 
tions into  the  acts  of  the  lower  animals.    I  do  not 
suppose  the  loon  reahzed  the  danger  of  its  com- 
panion, nor  went  under  the  ice  to  rescue  it.    It  fol- 
lowed the  grebe  because  it  wanted  to  be  with  it, 
or  to  share  in  any  food  that  might  be  detaining  it 
there,  and  then,  finding  no  air-hole,  it  proceeded  to 
make  one,  as  it  and  its  ancestors  must  often  have 
done  before.   All  our  northern  divers  must  be  more 
or  less  acquainted  with  ice,  and  must  know  how  to 
break  it.     The  grebe  itself  could  doubtless  have 
broken  the  ice  had  it  desired  to.  The  birds  and  the 

236 


READING  THE  BOOK  OF  NATURE 

beasts  often  show  much  intelligence,  or  what  looks 
like  intelligence,  but,  as  Hamerton  says,  "  the  mo- 
ment we  think  of  them  as  human,  we  are  lost." 

A  farmer  had  a  yearling  that  sucked  the  cows. 
To  prevent  this,  he  put  on  the  yearling  a  muzzle 
set  full  of  sharpened  nails.  These  of  course  pricked 
the  cows,  and  they  would  not  stand  to  be  drained  of 
their  milk.  The  next  day  the  farmer  saw  the  year- 
ling rubbing  the  nails  against  a  rock  in  order,  as 
he  thought,  to  dull  them  so  they  would  not  prick 
the  cows!  How  much  easier  to  believe  that  the 
beast  was  simply  trying  to  get  rid  of  the  awkward 
incumbrance  upon  its  nose.  What  can  a  calf  or 
a  cow  know  about  sharpened  nails,  and  the  use 
of  a  rock  to  dull  them  ?  This  is  a  kind  of  outside 
knowledge  —  outside  of  their  needs  and  experi- 
ences —  that  they  could  not  possess. 

An  Arizona  friend  of  mine  lately  told  me  this 
interesting  incident  about  the  gophers  that  infested 
his  cabin  when  he  was  a  miner.  The  gophers  ate  up 
his  bread.  He  could  not  hide  it  from  them  or  put 
it  beyond  their  reach.  Finally,  he  bethought  him  to 
stick  his  loaf  on  the  end  of  a  long  iron  poker  that 
he  had,  and  then  stand  up  the  poker  in  the  middle 
of  his  floor.  Still,  when  he  came  back  to  his  cabin, 
he  would  find  his  loaf  eaten  full  of  holes.  One  day, 
having  nothing  to  do,  he  concluded  to  watch  and 
see  how  the  gophers  reached  the  bread,  and  this 
was  what  he  saw :  The  animals  climbed  up  the  side 

237 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

of  his  log  cabin,  ran  along  one  of  the  logs  to  a  point 
opposite  the  bread,  and  then  sprang  out  sidewise 
toward  the  loaf,  which  each  one  struck,  but  upon 
which  only  one  seemed  able  to  effect  a  lodgment. 
Then  this  one  would  cling  to  the  loaf  and  act  as  a 
stop  to  his  fellows  when  they  tried  a  second  time, 
his  body  affording  them  the  barrier  they  required. 
My  friend  felt  sure  that  this  leader  deliberately  and 
consciously  aided  the  others  in  securing  a  footing 
on  the  loaf.  But  I  read  the  incident  differently. 
This  successful  jumper  aided  his  fellows  without 
designing  it.  The  exigencies  of  the  situation  com- 
pelled him  to  the  course  he  pursued.  Having  ef- 
fected a  lodgment  upon  the  impaled  loaf,  he  would 
of  course  cling  to  it  when  the  others  jumped  so  as 
not  to  be  dislodged,  thereby,  willy  nilly,  helping 
them  to  secure  a  foothold.  The  cooperation  was  in- 
evitable, and  not  the  result  of  design. 

The  power  to  see  straight  is  the  rarest  of  gifts; 
to  see  no  more  and  no  less  than  is  actually  before 
you ;  to  be  able  to  detach  yourself  and  see  the  thing 
as  it  actually  is,  uncolored  or  unmodified  by  your 
own  sentiments  or  prepossessions.  In  short,  to  see 
with  your  reason  as  well  as  with  your  perceptions, 
that  is  to  be  an  observer  and  to  read  the  book  of 
nature  aright. 


xw 

GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

I.    THE  TRAINING  OF  WILD   ANIMALS 

I  WAS  reminded  afresh  of  how  prone  we  all  are 
to  regard  the  actions  of  the  lower  animals  in 
the  light  of  our  own  psychology  on  reading  "  The 
Training  of  Wild  Animals,"  by  Bostock,  a  well- 
known  animal-trainer.  Bostock  evidently  knows 
well  the  art  of  training  animals,  but  of  the  science  of 
it  he  seems  to  know  very  little.  That  is,  while  he  is  a 
successful  trainer,  his  notions  of  animal  psychology 
are  very  crude.  For  instance,  on  one  page  he  speaks 
of  the  Hon  as  if  it  were  endowed  with  a  fair  mea- 
sure of  human  intelligence,  and  had  notions,  feel- 
ings, and  thoughts  like  our  own ;  on  the  next  page, 
when  he  gets  down  to  real  business,  he  lays  bare  its 
utter  want  of  these  things.  He  says  a  lion  born  and 
bred  in  captivity  is  more  difficult  to  train  than  one 
caught  from  the  jungle.  Then  he  gives  rein  to  his 
fancy.  "  Such  a  lion  does  not  fear  man ;  he  knows 
his  own  power.  He  regards  man  as  an  inferior,  with 
an  attitude  of  disdain  and  silent  hauteur."  "He 
accepts  his  food  as  tribute,  and  his  care  as  homage 
due."    "He  is  aristocratic  in  his  independence." 

239 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

"  Deep  in  him  —  so  deep  that  he  barely  realizes  its 
existence  —  slumbers  a  desire  for  freedom  and  an 
unutterable  longing  for  the  blue  sky  and  the  free 
air."  When  his  training  is  begun,  "  he  meets  it  with 
a  reserved  majesty  and  silent  indifference,  as  though 
he  had  a  dumb  realization  of  his  wrongs."  All  this 
is  a  very  human  way  of  looking  at  the  matter,  and 
is  typical  of  the  way  we  all  —  most  of  us  —  speak  of 
the  lower  animals,  defining  them  to  ourselves  in  terms 
of  our  own  mentality,  but  it  leads  to  false  notions 
about  them.  We  look  upon  an  animal  fretting  and 
struggling  in  its  cage  as  longing  for  freedom,  pictur- 
ing to  itself  the  joy  of  the  open  air  and  the  free  hills 
and  sky,  when  the  truth  of  the  matter  undoubtedly 
is  that  the  fluttering  bird  or  restless  fox  or  lion  sim- 
ply feels  discomfort  in  confinement.  Its  sufferings 
are  physical,  and  not  mental.  Its  instincts  lead  it 
to  struggle  for  freedom.  It  reacts  strongly  against 
the  barriers  that  hold  it,  and  tries  in  every  way  to 
overcome  them.  Freedom,  as  an  idea,  or  a  concep- 
tion of  a  condition  of  life,  is,  of  course,  beyond  its 
capacity. 

Bostock  shows  how  the  animal  learns  entirely  by 
association,  and  not  at  all  by  the  exercise  of  thought 
or  reason,  and  yet  a  moment  later  says :  "  The  ani- 
mal is  becoming  amenable  to  the  mastery  of  man, 
and  in  doing  so  his  own  reason  is  being  developed," 
which  is  much  like  saying  that  when  a  man  is  prac- 
ticing on  the  flying  trapeze  his  wings  are  being  de- 

240 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

veloped.  The  lion  learns  slowly  through  association 
—  through  repeated  sense  impressions.  First  a  long 
stick  is  put  into  his  cage.  If  this  is  destroyed,  it  is 
replaced  by  another,  until  he  gets  used  to  it  and  tol- 
erates its  presence.  Then  he  is  gently  rubbed  with 
it  at  the  hands  of  his  keeper.  He  gets  used  to  this 
and  comes  to  like  it.  Then  the  stick  is  baited  with 
a  piece  of  meat,  and  in  taking  the  meat  the  animal 
gets  still  better  acquainted  with  the  stick,  and  so 
ceases  to  fear  it.  When  this  stage  is  reached,  the 
stick  is  shortened  day  by  day,  "  until  finally  it  is  not 
much  longer  than  the  hand."  The  next  step  is  to  let 
the  hand  take  the  place  of  the  stick  in  the  stroking 
process.  "  This  is  a  great  step  taken,  for  one  of  the 
most  difficult  things  is  to  get  any  wild  animal  to  allow 
himself  to  be  touched  with  the  human  hand . "  After  a 
time  a  collar  with  a  chain  attached  is  slipped  around 
the  lion's  neck  when  he  is  asleep.  He  is  now  chained 
to  one  end  of  the  cage.  Then  a  chair  is  introduced 
into  the  cage;  whereupon  this  king  of  beasts,  whose 
reason  is  being  developed,  and  who  has  such  clear 
notions  of  inferior  and  superior,  and  who  knows  his 
own  powers,  usually  springs  for  the  chair,  seeking  to 
demolish  it.  His  tether  prevents  his  reaching  it,  and 
so  in  time  he  tolerates  the  chair.  Then  the  trainer, 
after  some  preliminary  feints,  walks  into  the  cage 
and  seats  himself  in  the  chair.  And  so,  inch  by  inch, 
as  it  were,  the  trainer  gets  control  of  the  animal 
and  subdues  him  to  his  purposes,  not  by  appeaHng 

241 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

to  liis  mind,  for  he  has  none,  but  by  impressions 
upon  his  senses. 

"  Leopards,  panthers,  and  jaguars  are  all  trained 
in  much  the  same  manner,"  and  in  putting  them 
through  their  tricks  one  invariable  order  must  be 
observed:  "Each  thing  done  one  day  must  be  done 
the  next  day  in  exactly  the  same  way;  there  must 
be  no  deviation  from  the  rule."  Now  we  do  not  see 
in  this  fact  the  way  of  a  thinking  or  reflecting  being, 
but  rather  the  way  of  a  creature  governed  by  instinct 
or  unthinking  intelligence.  An  animal  never  learns 
a  trick  in  the  sense  that  man  learns  it,  never  sees 
through  it  or  comprehends  it,  has  no  image  of  it  in 
its  mind,  and  no  idea  of  the  relations  of  the  parts  of 
it  to  one  another;  it  does  it  by  reason  of  repetition, 
as  a  creek  wears  its  channel,  and  probably  has  no 
more  self-knowledge  or  self -thought  than  the  creek 
has.  This,  I  think,  is  quite  contrary  to  the  popular 
notion  of  animal  life  and  mentality,  but  it  is  the  con- 
clusion that  I,  at  least,  cannot  avoid  after  making 
a  study  of  the  subject. 

II.     AN  ASTONISHED   PORCUPINE 

One  summer,  while  three  young  people  and  I 
were  spending  an  afternoon  upon  a  mountain-top, 
our  dogs  treed  a  porcupine.  At  my  suggestion  the 
young  man  climbed  the  tree  —  not  a  large  one  — 
to  shake  the  animal  down.  I  wished  to  see  what  the 
dogs  would  do  with  him,  and  what  the  "  quill-pig  " 

242 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

would  do  with  the  dogs.  As  the  climber  advanced 
the  rodent  went  higher,  till  the  Kmb  he  clung  to  was 
no  larger  than  one's  wrist.  This  the  young  man 
seized  and  shook  vigorously.  I  expected  to  see  the 
slow,  stupid  porcupine  drop,  but  he  did  not.  He 
only  tightened  his  hold.  The  climber  tightened  his 
hold,  too,  and  shook  the  harder.  Still  the  bundle 
of  quills  did  not  come  down,  and  no  amount  of 
shaking  could  bring  it  down.  Then  I  handed  a  long 
pole  up  to  the  climber,  and  he  tried  to  punch  the 
animal  down.  This  attack  in  the  rear  was  evidently 
a  surprise;  it  produced  an  impression  different  from 
that  of  the  shaking.  The  porcupine  struck  the  pole 
with  his  tail,  put  up  the  shield  of  quills  upon  his 
back,  and  assumed  his  best  attitude  of  defense. 
Still  the  pole  persisted  in  its  persecution,  regardless 
of  the  quills;  evidently  the  animal  was  astonished; 
he  had  never  had  an  experience  hke  this  before ;  he 
had  now  met  a  foe  that  despised  his  terrible  quills. 
Then  he  began  to  back  rapidly  down  the  tree  in  the 
face  of  his  enemy.  The  young  man's  sweetheart 
stood  below,  a  highly  interested  spectator.  "  Look 
out,  Sam,  he's  coming  down!"  "Be  quick,  he's 
gaining  on  you!"  "Hurry,  Sam!"  Sam  came  as 
fast  as  he  could,  but  he  had  to  look  out  for  his  foot- 
ing, and  his  antagonist  did  not.  Still,  he  reached  the 
ground  first,  and  his  sweetheart  breathed  more 
easily.  It  looked  as  if  the  porcupine  reasoned  thus; 
"  My  quills  are  useless  against  a  foe  so  far  away ; 

243 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

I  must  come  to  close  quarters  with  him."  But, 
of  course,  the  stupid  creature  had  no  such  mental 
process,  and  formed  no  such  purpose.  He  had  found 
the  tree  unsafe,  and  his  instinct  now  was  to  get  to  the 
ground  as  quickly  as  possible  and  take  refuge  among 
the  rocks.  As  he  came  down  I  hit  him  a  sHght  blow 
over  the  nose  with  a  rotten  stick,  hoping  only  to  con- 
fuse him  a  Httle,  but  much  to  my  surprise  and  morti- 
fication he  dropped  to  the  ground  and  rolled  down 
the  hill  dead,  having  succumbed  to  a  blow  that  a 
woodchuck  or  a  coon  would  hardly  nave  regarded 
at  all.  Thus  does  the  easy,  passive  mode  of  defense 
of  the  porcupine  not  only  dull  his  wits,  but  it  makes 
frail  and  brittle  the  thread  of  his  life.  He  has  had  no 
struggles  or  battles  to  harden  and  toughen  him. 

That  blunt  nose  of  his  is  as  tender  as  a  baby's,  and 
he  is  snuffed  out  by  a  blow  that  would  hardly  bewil- 
der for  a  moment  any  other  forest  animal,  unless 
it  be  the  skunk,  another  sluggish  non-combatant 
of  our  woodlands.  Immunity  from  foes,  from  effort, 
from  struggle  is  always  purchased  with  a  price. 

Certain  of  our  natural  history  romancers  have 
taken  liberties  with  the  porcupine  in  one  respect: 
they  have  shown  him  made  up  into  a  ball  and  roll- 
ing down  a  hill.  One  writer  makes  him  do  this  in 
a  sportive  mood;  he  rolls  down  a  long  hill  in  the 
woods,  and  at  the  bottom  he  is  a  ragged  mass  of 
leaves  which  his  quills  have  impaled  —  an  appari- 
tion that  nearly  frightened  a  rabbit  out  of  its  wits. 

244 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

Let  any  one  who  knows  the  porcupine  try  to  fancy 
it  performing  a  feat  like  this ! 

Another  romancer  makes  his  porcupine  roll  him- 
self into  a  ball  when  attacked  by  a  panther,  and  then 
on  a  nudge  from  his  enemy  roll  down  a  snowy  incline 
into  the  water.  I  believe  the  little  European  hedge- 
hog can  roll  itself  up  into  something  hke  a  ball,  but 
our  porcupine  does  not.  I  have  tried  all  sorts  of 
tricks  with  him,  and  made  all  sorts  of  assaults  upon 
him,  at  different  times,  and  I  have  never  yet  seen 
him  assume  the  globular  form.  It  would  not  be  the 
best  form  for  him  to  assume,  because  it  would  partly 
expose  his  vulnerable  under  side.  The  one  thing  the 
porcupine  seems  bent  upon  doing  at  all  times  is  to 
keep  right  side  up  with  care.  His  attitude  of  defense 
is  crouching  close  to  the  ground,  head  drawn  in  and 
pressed  down,  the  circular  shield  of  large  quills  upon 
his  back  opened  and  extended  as  far  as  possible,  and 
the  tail  stretched  back  rigid  and  held  close  upon  the 
ground.  "  Now  come  on,"  he  says,  "  if  you  want  to." 
The  tail  is  his  weapon  of  active  defense ;  with  it  he 
strikes  upward  like  lightning,  and  drives  the  quills 
into  whatever  they  touch.  In  his  chapter  called  "  In 
Panoply  of  Spears,"  Mr.  Roberts  paints  the  porcu- 
pine without  taking  any  liberties  with  the  creature's 
known  habits.  He  portrays  one  characteristic  of 
the  porcupine  very  fehcitously :  "  As  the  porcupine 
made  his  resolute  way  through  the  woods,  the  man- 
ner of  his  going  differed  from  that  of  all  the  other 

245 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

kindreds  of  the  wild.  He  went  not  furtively.  He  had 
no  particular  objection  to  making  a  noise.  He  did 
not  consider  it  necessary  to  stop  every  little  while, 
stiffen  himself  to  a  monument  of  immobihty,  cast 
wary  glances  about  the  gloom,  and  sniff  the  air  for 
the  taint  of  enemies.  He  did  not  care  who  knew  of 
his  coming,  and  he  did  not  greatly  care  who  came. 
Behind  his  panoply  of  biting  spears  he  felt  himself 
secure,  and  in  that  security  he  moved  as  if  he  held 
in  fee  the  whole  green,  shadowy,  perilous  woodland 
world." 

III.     BIRDS   AND    STRINGS 

A  college  professor  writes  me  as  follows :  — 
**  Watching  this  morning  a  robin  attempting  to 
carry  off  a  string,  one  end  of  which  was  caught  in 
a  tree,  I  was  much  impressed  by  his  utter  lack  of 
sense.  He  could  not  realize  that  the  string  was  fast, 
or  that  it  must  be  loosened  before  it  could  be  car- 
ried off,  and  in  his  efforts  to  get  it  all  in  his  bill  he 
wound  it  about  a  neighboring  hmb.  If  as  httle  sense 
were  displayed  in  using  other  material  for  nests, 
there  would  be  no  robins'  nests.  It  impressed  me 
more  than  ever  with  the  important  part  played  by 
instinct." 

Who  ever  saw  any  of  our  common  birds  dis- 
play any  sense  or  judgment  in  the  handling  of 
strings  ?  Strings  are  comparatively  a  new  thing  with 
birds;    they  are  not  a  natural  product,  and  as  a 

246 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

matter  of  course  birds  blunder  in  handKng  them. 
The  oriole  uses  them  the  most  successfully,  often 
attaching  her  pensile  nest  to  the  branch  by  their  aid. 
But  she  uses  them  in  a  blind,  childish  way,  winding 
them  round  and  round  the  branch,  often  getting 
them  looped  over  a  twig  or  hopelessly  tangled,  and 
now  and  then  hanging  herself  with  them,  as  is  the 
case  with  other  birds.  I  have  seen  a  sparrow,  a  cedar- 
bird,  and  a  robin  each  hung  by  a  string  it  was  using 
in  the  building  of  its  nest.  Last  spring,  in  Spokane,  a 
boy  brought  me  a  desiccated  robin,  whose  feet  were 
held  together  by  a  long  thread  hopelessly  snarled. 
The  boy  had  found  it  hanging  to  a  tree. 

I  have  seen  in  a  bird  magazine  a  photograph  of 
an  oriole's  nest  that  had  a  string  carried  around  a 
branch  apparently  a  foot  or  more  away,  and  then 
brought  back  and  the  end  woven  into  the  nest.  It 
was  given  as  a  sample  of  a  well-guyed  nest,  the  dis- 
coverer no  doubt  looking  upon  it  as  proof  of  an 
oriole's  forethought  in  providing  against  winds  and 
storms.  I  have  seen  an  oriole's  nest  with  a  string 
carried  around  a  leaf,  and  another  with  a  long  looped 
string  hanging  free.  All  such  cases  simply  show 
that  the  bird  was  not  master  of  her  material ;  she 
bungled;  the  traihng  string  caught  over  the  leaf  or 
branch,  and  she  drew  both  ends  in  and  fastened 
them  regardless  of  what  had  happened.  The  inci- 
dent only  shows  how  blindly  instinct  works. 

Twice  I  have  seen  cedar-birds,  in  their  quest  for 

247 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

nesting-material,  trying  to  carry  away  the  strings 
that  orioles  had  attached  to  branches.  According  to 
our  sentimental "  School  of  Nature  Study,"  the  birds 
should  have  untied  and  unsnarled  the  strings  in  a 
human  way,  but  they  did  not;  they  simply  tugged 
at  them,  bringing  their  weight  to  bear,  and  tried  to 
fly  away  with  the  loose  end. 

In  view  of  the  ignorance  of  birds  with  regard  to 
strings,  how  can  we  credit  the  story  told  by  one  of 
our  popular  nature  writers  of  a  pair  of  orioles  that 
dehberately  impaled  a  piece  of  cloth  upon  a  thorn 
in  order  that  it  might  be  held  firmly  while  they  pulled 
out  the  threads  ?  When  it  came  loose,  they  refastened 
it.  The  story  is  incredible  for  two  reasons:  (1)  the 
male  oriole  does  not  assist  the  female  in  building  the 
nest ;  he  only  furnishes  the  music ;  (2)  the  whole 
proceeding  implies  an  amount  of  reflection  and  skill 
in  dealing  with  a  new  problem  that  none  of  our 
birds  possess.  What  experience  has  the  race  of 
orioles  had  with  cloth,  that  any  member  of  it  should 
know  how  to  unravel  it  in  that  way  ?  The  whole  idea 
is  absurd. 

IV.     MIMICRY 

To  what  lengths  the  protective  resemblance  the- 
ory is  pushed  by  some  of  its  expounders!  Thus, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Rio  Janeiro  there  are  two 
species  of  hawks  that  closely  resemble  each  other, 
but  one  eats  only  insects  and  the  other  eats  birds. 

248 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

Mr.  Wallace  thinks  that  the  bird-eater  mimics  the 
insect-eater,  so  as  to  deceive  the  birds,  which  are 
not  afraid  of  the  latter.  But  if  the  two  hawks  look 
ahke,  would  not  the  birds  come  to  regard  them  both 
as  bird-eaters,  since  one  of  them  does  eat  birds  ? 
Would  they  not  at  once  identify  the  harmless  one 
with  their  real  enemy  and  thus  fear  them  both  alike  ? 
If  the  latter  were  newcomers  and  vastly  in  the  minor- 
ity, then  the  ruse  might  work  for  a  while.  But  if  there 
were  ten  harmless  hawks  around  to  one  dangerous 
one,  the  former  would  quickly  suffer  from  the  char- 
acter of  the  latter  in  the  estimation  of  the  birds. 
Birds  are  instinctively  afraid  of  all  hawk  kind. 

Wallace  thinks  it  may  be  an  advantage  to  cuckoos, 
a  rather  feeble  class  of  birds,  to  resemble  the  hawks, 
but  this  seems  to  me  far-fetched.  True  it  is,  if  the 
sheep  could  imitate  the  wolf,  its  enemies  might  keep 
clear  of  it.  Why,  then,  has  not  this  resemblance 
been  brought  about  ?  Our  cuckoo  is  a  feeble  and 
defenseless  bird  also,  but  it  bears  no  resemblance 
to  the  hawk.  The  same  can  be  said  of  scores  of 
other  birds. 

Many  of  these  close  resemblances  among  different 
species  of  animals  are  no  doubt  purely  accidental, 
or  the  result  of  the  same  law  of  variation  acting 
under  similar  conditions.  We  have  a  hummingbird 
moth  that  so  closely  in  its  form  and  flight  and  man- 
ner resembles  a  hummingbird,  that  if  this  resem- 
blance brought  it  any  immunity  from  danger    it 

249 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

would  be  set  down  as  a  clear  case  of  mimicry.  There 
is  such  a  moth  in  England,  too,  where  no  humming- 
bird is  found.  Why  should  not  Nature  repeat  herself 
in  this  way  ?  This  moth  feeds  upon  the  nectar  of 
flowers  like  the  hummingbird,  and  why  should  it 
not  have  the  hummingbird's  form  and  manner  ? 

Then  there  are  accidental  resemblances  in  nature, 
such  as  the  often-seen  resemblance  of  knots  of  trees 
and  of  vegetables  to  the  human  form,  and  of  a  cer- 
tain fungus  to  a  part  of  man's  anatomy.  We  have  a 
fly  that  resembles  a  honey-bee.  In  my  bee-hunting 
days  I  used  to  call  it  the  "mock  honey-bee."  It 
would  come  up  the  wind  on  the  scent  of  my  bee  box 
and  hum  about  it  precisely  like  a  real  bee.  Of  course 
it  was  here  before  the  honey-bee,  and  has  been 
evolved  quite  independently  of  it.  It  feeds  upon  the 
pollen  and  nectar  of  flowers  like  the  true  bee,  and  is, 
therefore,  of  similar  form  and  color.  The  honey-bee 
has  its  enemies;  the  toads  and  tree-frogs  feed  upon 
it,  and  the  kingbird  captures  the  slow  drone. 

When  an  edible  butterfly  mimics  an  inedible  or 
noxious  one,  as  is  frequently  the  case  in  the  tropics, 
the  mimicker  is  no  doubt  the  gainer. 

It  makes  a  big  difference  whether  the  mimicker 
is  seeking  to  escape  from  an  enemy,  or  seeking  to 
deceive  its  prey.  I  fail  to  see  how,  in  the  latter  case, 
any  disguise  of  form  or  color  could  be  brought  about. 

Our  shrike,  at  times,  murders  little  birds  and  eats 
out  their  brains,  and  it  has  not  the  form,  or  the 

250 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

color,  or  the  eye  of  a  bird  of  prey,  and  thus  probably 
deceives  its  victims,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  beheve 
that  this  guise  is  the  result  of  any  sort  of  mimicry. 

V.     THE   COLORS   OF   FRUITS 

Mr.  Wallace  even  looks  upon  the  nuts  as  pro- 
tectively colored,  because  they  are  not  to  be  eaten. 
But  without  the  agency  of  the  birds  and  the  squir- 
rels, how  are  the  heavy  nuts,  such  as  the  chestnut, 
beechnut,  acorn,  butternut,  and  the  like,  to  be  scat- 
tered ?  The  blue  jay  is  often  busy  hours  at  a  time 
in  the  fall,  planting  chestnuts  and  acorns,  and  red 
squirrels  carry  butternuts  and  walnuts  far  from  the 
parent  trees,  and  place  them  in  forked  hmbs  and 
holes  for  future  use.  Of  course,  many  of  these  fall  to 
the  ground  and  take  root.  If  the  protective  colora- 
tion of  the  nuts,  then,  were  effective,  it  would  defeat 
a  purpose  which  every  tree  and  shrub  and  plant  has 
at  heart,  namely,  the  scattering  of  its  seed.  I  notice 
that  the  button-balls  on  the  sycamores  are  protec- 
tively colored  also,  and  certainly  they  do  not  crave 
concealment.  It  is  true  that  they  hang  on  the  naked 
trees  till  spring,  when  no  concealment  is  possible.  It 
is  also  true  that  the  jays  and  the  crows  carry  away 
the  chestnuts  from  the  open  burrs  on  the  trees  where 
no  color  scheme  would  conceal  them.  But  the  squir- 
rels find  them  upon  the  ground  even  beneath  the 
snow,  being  guided,  no  doubt,  by  the  sense  of  smell. 

The  hickory  nut  is  almost  white ;  why  does  it  not 

251 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

seek  concealment  also  ?  It  is  just  as  helpless  as  tlie 
others,  and  is  just  as  sweet-meated.  It  occurs  to  me 
that  birds  can  do  nothing  with  it  on  account  of  its 
thick  shell ;  it  needs,  therefore,  to  attract  some  four- 
footed  creature  that  will  carry  it  away  from  the  par- 
ent tree,  and  this  is  done  by  the  mice  and  the  squir- 
rels. But  if  this  is  the  reason  of  its  whiteness,  there 
is  the  dusky  butternut  and  the  black  walnut,  both 
more  or  less  concealed  by  their  color,  and  yet  having 
the  same  need  of  some  creature  to  scatter  them. 

The  seeds  of  the  maple,  and  of  the  ash  and  the 
linden,  are  obscurely  colored,  and  they  are  winged ; 
hence  they  do  not  need  the  aid  of  any  creature  in 
their  dissemination.  To  say  that  this  is  the  reason 
of  their  dull,  unattractive  tints  would  be  an  expla- 
nation on  a  par  with  much  that  one  hears  about 
the  significance  of  animal  and  vegetable  coloration. 
Why  is  corn  so  bright  colored,  and  wheat  and  barley 
so  dull,  and  rice  so  white  .'^  No  doubt  there  is  a 
reason  in  each  case,  but  I  doubt  if  that  reason  has 
any  relation  to  the  surrounding  animal  Hfe. 

The  new  Botany  teaches  that  the  flowers  have 
color  and  perfume  to  attract  the  insects  to  aid  in 
their  fertihzation  —  a  need  so  paramount  with  all 
plants,  because  plants  that  are  fertilized  by  aid  of 
the  wind  have  very  inconspicuous  flowers.  Is  it 
equally  true  that  the  high  color  of  most  fruits  is  to 
attract  some  hungry  creature  to  come  and  eat  them 
and  thus  scatter  the  seeds  ?   From  the  dwarf  cornel, 

252 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

or  bunch-berry,  in  the  woods,  to  the  red  thorn  in 
the  fields,  every  fruit-bearing  plant  and  shrub  and 
tree  seems  to  advertise  itself  to  the  passer-by  in  its 
bright  hues.  Apparently  there  is  no  other  use  to 
the  plant  of  the  fleshy  pericarp  than  to  serve  as  a 
bait  or  wage  for  some  animal  to  come  and  sow  its 
seed.  Why,  then,  should  it  not  take  on  these  allur- 
ing colors  to  help  along  this  end.'^  And  yet  there 
comes  the  thought,  may  not  this  scarlet  and  gold  of 
the  berries  and  tree  fruits  be  the  inevitable  result  of 
the  chemistry  of  ripening,  as  it  is  with  the  autumn 
foliage.''  What  benefit  to  the  tree,  directly  or  in- 
directly, is  all  this  wealth  of  color  of  the  autumn  ? 
Many  of  the  toadstools  are  highly  colored  also ;  how 
do  they  profit  by  it  ?  Many  of  the  shells  upon  the 
beach  are  very  showy  ;  to  what  end  ?  The  cherry- 
birds  find  the  pale  ox-hearts  as  readily  as  they  do  the 
brilKant  Murillos,  and  the  dull  blue  cedar  berries 
and  the  duller  drupes  of  the  lotus  are  not  concealed 
from  them  nor  from  the  robins.  But  it  is  true  that 
the  greenish  white  grapes  in  the  vineyard  do  not 
suffer  from  the  attacks  of  the  birds  as  do  the  blue 
and  red  ones.  The  reason  probably  is  that  the  birds 
regard  them  as  unripe.  The  white  grape  is  quite 
recent,  and  the  birds  have  not  yet  "  caught  on." 

Poisonous  fruits  are  also  highly  colored;  to  what 
end  ?  In  Bermuda  I  saw  on  low  bushes  great  masses 
of  what  they  called  "pigeon-berries"  of  a  brilliant 
yellow  color  and  very  tempting,  yet  I  was  assured 

253 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

they  were  poisonous.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  if  anything  eats  the  red  berries  of  our  wild 
turnip  or  arum.  I  doubt  if  any  bird  or  beast  could 
stand  them.  Wherefore,  then,  are  they  so  brightly 
colored  ?  I  am  also  equally  curious  to  know  if  any- 
thing eats  the  fruit  of  the  red  and  white  baneberry 
and  the  blue  cohosh. 

The  seeds  of  some  wild  fruit,  such  as  the  chmb- 
ing  bitter-sweet,  are  so  soft  that  it  seems  impossible 
they  should  pass  through  the  gizzard  of  a  bird  and 
not  be  destroyed. 

The  fruit  of  the  sumac  comes  the  nearest  to  being 
a  cheat  of  anything  I  know  of  in  nature  —  a  collec- 
tion of  seeds  covered  with  a  flannel  coat  with  just  a 
perceptible  acid  taste,  and  all  highly  colored.  Unless 
the  seed  itself  is  digested,  what  is  there  to  tempt  the 
bird  to  devour  it,  or  to  reward  it  for  so  doing  ? 

In  the  tropics  one  sees  fruits  that  do  not  become 
bright  colored  on  ripening,  such  as  the  breadfruit, 
the  custard  apple,  the  naseberry,  the  mango.  And 
tropical  foHage  never  colors  up  as  does  the  foHage  of 
northern  trees. 

VI.     INSTINCT 

Many  false  notions  seem  to  be  current  in  the 
popular  mind  about  instinct.  Apparently,  some  of 
our  writers  on  natural  history  themes  would  like 
to  discard  the  word  entirely.'  Now  instinct  is  not 
opposed  to  intelligence;    it  is  intelligence  of  the 

254 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

unlearned,  unconscious  kind,  — the  intelligence  in- 
nate in  nature.  We  use  the  word  to  distinguish  a 
gift  or  faculty  which  animals  possess,  and  which  is 
independent  of  instruction  and  experience,  from  the 
mental  equipment  of  man  which  depends  mainly 
upon  instruction  and  experience.  A  man  has  to  be 
taught  to  do  that  which  the  lower  animals  do  from 
nature.  Hence  the  animals  do  not  progress  in 
knowledge,  while  man's  progress  is  almost  limitless. 
A  man  is  an  animal  born  again  into  a  higher  spirit- 
ual plane.  He  has  lost  or  shed  many  of  his  animal 
instincts  in  the  process,  but  he  has  gained  the  ca- 
pacity for  great  and  wonderful  improvement. 

Instinct  is  opposed  to  reason,  to  reflection,  to 
thought, — to  that  kind  of  intelligence  which  knows 
and  takes  cognizance  of  itself.  Instinct  is  that  lower 
form  of  intelligence  wliich  acts  through  the  senses,  — 
sense  perception,  sense  association,  sense  memory,  — 
which  we  share  with  the  animals,  though  their  eyes 
and  ears  and  noses  are  often  quicker  and  keener 
than  ours.  Hence  the  animals  know  only  the  present, 
visible,  objective  world,  while  man  through  his  gift 
of  reason  and  thought  knows  the  inward  world  of 
ideas  and  ideal  relations. 

An  animal  for  the  most  part  knows  all  that  it  is 
necessary  for  it  to  know  as  soon  as  it  reaches  ma- 
turity; what  it  learns  beyond  that,  what  it  learns 
at  the  hands  of  the  animal-trainer,  for  instance,  it 
learns  slowly,  through  a  long  repetition  of  the  pro- 

255 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

cess  of  trial  and  failure.  Man  also  achieves  many 
things  through  practice  alone,  or  through  the  same 
process  of  trial  and  failure.  Much  of  his  manual 
skill  comes  in  this  way,  but  he  learns  certain  things 
through  the  exercise  of  his  reason ;  he  sees  how  the 
thing  is  done,  and  the  relation  of  the  elements  of  the 
problem  to  one  another.  The  trained  animal  never 
sees  how  the  thing  is  done,  it  simply  does  it  auto- 
matically, because  certain  sense  impressions  have 
been  stamped  upon  it  till  a  habit  has  been  formed, 
just  as  a  man  will  often  wind  his  watch  before  going 
to  bed,  or  do  some  other  accustomed  act,  without 
thinking  of  it. 

The  bird  builds  her  nest  and  builds  it  intelli- 
gently, that  is,  she  adapts  means  to  an  end;  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  she  thinks  about 
it  in  the  sense  that  man  does  when  he  builds  his 
house.  The  nest-building  instinct  is  stimulated  into 
activity  by  outward  conditions  of  place  and  cHmate 
and  food  supply  as  truly  as  the  growth  of  a  plant  is 
thus  stimulated. 

As  I  look  upon  the  matter,  the  most  wonderful 
and  ingenious  nests  in  the  world,  as  those  of  the 
weaver-birds  and  orioles,  show  no  more  independent 
self-directed  and  self-originated  thought  than  does 
the  rude  nest  of  the  pigeon  or  the  cuckoo.  They 
evince  a  higher  grade  of  intelligent  instinct,  and  that 
is  all.  Both  are  equally  the  result  of  natural  prompt- 
ings, and  not  of  acquired  skill,  or  the  lack  of  it.  One 

^5Q 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

species  of  bird  will  occasionally  learn  the  song  of 
another  species,  but  the  song  impulse  must  be  there 
to  begin  with,  and  this  must  be  stimulated  in  the 
right  way  at  the  right  time.  A  caged  Enghsh  spar- 
row has  been  known  to  learn  the  song  of  the  canary 
caged  with  or  near  it,  but  the  sparrow  certainly 
inherits  the  song  impulse.  One  has  proof  of  this 
when  he  hears  a  company  of  these  sparrows  sitting 
in  a  tree  in  spring  chattering  and  chirping  in  unison, 
and  almost  reaching  an  utterance  that  is  song-like. 
Our  cedar-bird  does  not  seem  to  have  the  song  im- 
pulse, and  I  doubt  if  it  could  ever  be  taught  to  sing. 
In  like  manner  our  ruffed  grouse  has  but  feeble  vocal 
powers,  and  I  do  not  suppose  it  would  learn  to  crow 
or  cackle  if  brought  up  in  the  barn-yard.  It  expresses 
its  joy  at  the  return  of  spring  and  the  mating  season 
in  its  drum,  as  do  the  woodpeckers. 

The  recent  English  writer  Richard  Kearton  says 
there  is  "  no  such  dead  level  of  unreasoning  instinct " 
in  the  animal  world  as  is  popularly  supposed,  and 
he  seems  to  base  the  remark  upon  the  fact  that  he 
found  certain  of  the  cavities  or  holes  in  a  hay-rick 
where  sparrows  roosted  Hned  with  feathers,  while 
others  were  not  lined.  Such  departures  from  a  level 
line  of  habit  as  this  are  common  enough  among  all 
creatures.  Instinct  is  not  something  as  rigid  as  cast 
iron;  it  does  not  invariably  act  like  a  machine, 
always  the  same.  The  animal  is  something  ahve, 
and  is  subject  to  the  law  of  variation.   Instinct  may 

257 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

act  more  strongly  in  one  kind  than  in  another,  just 
as  reason  may  act  more  strongly  in  one  man  than  in 
another,  or  as  one  animal  may  have  greater  speed 
or  courage  than  another  of  the  same  species.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  two  Hve  creatures,  very  far  up 
in  the  scale,  exactly  aHke.  A  thrush  may  use  much 
mud  in  the  construction  of  its  nest,  or  it  may  use 
Httle  or  none  at  all;  the  oriole  may  weave  strings 
into  its  nest,  or  it  may  use  only  dry  grasses  and 
horse-hairs  ;  such  cases  only  show  variations  in  the 
action  of  instinct.  But  if  an  oriole  should  build  a 
nest  Uke  a  robin,  or  a  robin  build  like  a  cliff  swal- 
low, that  would  be  a  departure  from  instinct  to 
take  note  of. 

Some  birds  show  a  much  higher  degree  of  vari- 
abihty  than  others ;  some  species  vary  much  in  song, 
others  in  nesting  and  in  feeding  habits.  I  have 
never  noticed  much  variation  in  the  songs  of  robins, 
but  in  their  nesting-habits  they  vary  constantly. 
Thus  one  nest  will  be  almost  destitute  of  mud,  while 
another  will  be  composed  almost  mainly  of  mud; 
one  will  have  a  large  mass  of  dry  grass  and  weeds 
as  its  foundation,  while  the  next  one  will  have  little 
or  no  foundation  of  the  kind.  The  sites  chosen 
vary  still  more,  ranging  from  the  ground  all  the 
way  to  the  tops  of  trees.  I  have  seen  a  robin's  nest 
built  in  the  centre  of  a  small  box  that  held  a  clump 
of  ferns,  which  stood  by  the  roadside  on  the  top 
of  a  low  post  near  a  house,  and  without  cover  or 

258 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

shield  of  any  sort.  The  robin  had  welded  her  nest 
so  completely  to  the  soil  in  the  box  that  the  whole 
could  be  hfted  by  the  rim  of  the  nest.  She  had 
given  a  very  pretty  and  unique  effect  to  the  nest 
by  a  border  of  fine  dark  rootlets  skillfully  woven 
together.  The  song  sparrow  shows  a  high  degree  of 
variabihty  both  in  its  song  and  in  its  nesting-habits, 
each  bird  having  several  songs  of  its  own,  while 
one  may  nest  upon  the  ground  and  another  in  a 
low  bush,  or  in  the  vines  on  the  side  of  your  house. 
The  vesper  sparrow,  on  the  other  hand,  shows  a 
much  lower  degree  of  variabihty,  the  individuals 
rarely  differing  in  their  songs,  while  all  the  nests  I 
have  ever  found  of  this  sparrow  were  in  open  grassy 
fields  upon  the  ground.  The  chipping  or  social 
sparrow  is  usually  very  constant  in  its  song  and  its 
nesting-habits,  and  yet  one  season  a  chippy  built 
her  nest  in  an  old  robin's  nest  in  the  vines  on  my 
porch.  It  was  a  very  pretty  instance  of  adaptation 
on  the  part  of  the  httle  bird.  Another  chippy  that 
I  knew  had  an  original  song,  one  that  resembled 
the  sound  of  a  small  tin  whistle.  The  bush  spar- 
row, too,  is  pretty  constant  in  choosing  a  bush  in 
which  to  place  its  nest,  yet  I  once  found  the  nest  of 
this  sparrow  upon  the  ground  in  an  open  field  with 
suitable  bushes  within  a  few  yards  of  it.  The  wood- 
peckers, the  jays,  the  cuckoos,  the  pewees,  the  war- 
blers, and  other  wood  birds  show  only  a  low  degree 
of  variabihty  in  song,  feeding,  and  nesting  habits. 

259 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

The  Baltimore  oriole  makes  free  use  of  strings  in 
its  nest-building,  and  the  songs  of  different  birds  of 
this  species  vary  greatly,  while  the  orchard  oriole 
makes  no  use  of  strings,  so  far  as  I  have  observed, 
and  its  song  is  always  and  everywhere  the  same. 
Hence  we  may  say  that  the  lives  of  some  birds  run 
much  more  in  ruts  than  do  those  of  others ;  they 
show  less  plasticity  of  instinct,  and  are  perhaps  for 
that  reason  less  near  the  state  of  free  intelligence. 

Organic  life  in  all  its  forms  is  flexible;  instinct  is 
flexible;  the  habits  of  all  the  animals  change  more 
or  less  with  changed  conditions,  but  the  range  of  the 
fluctuations  in  the  lives  of  the  wild  creatures  is  very 
Hmited,  and  is  always  determined  by  surrounding 
circumstances,  and  not  by  individual  volition,  as  it 
so  often  is  in  the  case  of  man.  In  a  treeless  country 
birds  that  sing  on  the  perch  elsewhere  will  sing  on 
the  wing.  The  black  bear  in  the  Southern  States 
"  holes  up  "  for  a  much  shorter  period  than  in  Can- 
ada or  the  Rockies.  Why  is  the  spruce  grouse  so 
stupid  compared  with  most  other  species  ?  Why  is 
the  Canada  jay  so  tame  and  familiar  about  your 
camp  in  the  northern  woods  or  in  the  Rockies,  and 
the  other  jays  so  wary  ?  Such  variations,  of  course, 
have  their  natural  explanation,  whatever  it  may  be. 
In  New  Zealand  there  is  a  parrot,  the  kea,  that  once 
lived  upon  honey  and  fruit,  but  that  now  lives  upon 
the  sheep,  tearing  its  way  down  to  the  kidney  fat. 

This  is  a  wide  departure  in  instinct,  but  it  is  not 

260 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

to  be  read  as  a  development  of  reason  in  its  place. 
It  is  a  modified  instinct, — the  instinct  for  food  seek- 
ing new  sources  of  supply.  Exactly  how  it  came 
about  would  be  interesting  to  know.  Our  oriole 
is  an  insectivorous  bird,  but  in  some  localities  it  is 
very  destructive  in  the  August  vineyards.  It  does 
not  become  a  fruit-eater  like  the  robin,  but  a  juice- 
sucker;  it  punctures  the  grapes  for  their  unfermented 
wine.  Here,  again,  we  have  a  case  of  modified  and 
adaptive  instinct.  All  animals  are  more  or  less 
adaptive,  and  avail  themselves  of  new  sources  of 
food  supply.  When  the  southern  savannas  were 
planted  with  rice,  the  bobolinks  soon  found  that  this 
food  suited  them.  A  few  years  ago  we  had  a  great 
visitation  in  the  Hudson  River  Valley  of  crossbills 
from  the  north.  They  lingered  till  the  fruit  of  the 
peach  orchards  had  set,  when  they  discovered  that 
here  was  a  new  source  of  food  supply,  and  they 
became  very  destructive  to  the  promised  crop  by 
deftly  cutting  out  the  embryo  peaches.  All  such 
cases  show  how  plastic  and  adaptive  instinct  is,  at 
least  in  relation  to  food  suppHes.  Let  me  again  say 
that  instinct  is  native,  untaught  intelhgence,  di- 
rected outward,  but  never  inward  as  in  man. 

VII.     THE   ROBIN 

Probably,  with  us,  no  other  bird  is  so  closely 
associated  with  country  life  as  the  robin  ;  most  of 
the  time  pleasantly,  but  for  a  brief  season,  during 

261 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

cherry  time,  unpleasantly.  His  life  touches  or  min- 
gles with  ours  at  many  points  —  in  the  dooryard, 
in  the  garden,  in  the  orchard,  along  the  road,  in 
the  groves,  in  the  woods.  He  is  everywhere  except 
in  the  depths  of  the  primitive  forests,  and  he  is 
always  very  much  at  home.  He  does  not  hang  tim- 
idly upon  the  skirts  of  our  rural  life,  Hke,  say,  the 
thrasher  or  the  chewink  ;  he  plunges  in  boldly  and 
takes  his  chances,  and  his  share,  and  often  more 
than  his  share,  of  whatever  is  going.  What  vigor, 
what  cheer,  how  persistent,  how  prohfic,  how  adap- 
tive ;  pugnacious,  but  cheery,  pilfering,  but  com- 
panionable ! 

When  one  first  sees  his  ruddy  breast  upon  the 
lawn  in  spring,  or  his  pert  form  outHned  against 
a  patch  of  Hngering  snow  in  the  brown  fields,  or 
hears  his  simple  carol  from  the  top  of  a  leafless  tree 
at  sundown,  what  a  vernal  thrill  it  gives  one !  What 
a  train  of  pleasant  associations  is  quickened  into 
Hfe! 

What  pictures  he  makes  upon  the  lawn!  What 
attitudes  he  strikes !  See  him  seize  a  worm  and  yank 
it  from  its  burrow! 

I  recently  observed  a  robin  boring  for  grubs  in  a 
country  dooryard.  It  is  a  common  enough  sight  to 
witness  one  seize  an  angle-worm  and  drag  it  from 
its  burrow  in  the  turf,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  I  ever 
before  saw  one  drill  for  grubs  and  bring  the  big 
white  morsel  to  the  surface.  The  robin  I  am  speak- 

262 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

ing  of  had  a  nest  of  young  in  a  maple  near  by,  and 
she  worked  the  neighborhood  very  industriously 
for  food.  She  would  run  along  over  the  short  grass 
after  the  manner  of  robins,  stopping  every  few  feet, 
her  form  stiff  and  erect.  Now  and  then  she  would 
suddenly  bend  her  head  toward  the  ground  and  bring 
eye  or  ear  for  a  moment  to  bear  intently  upon  it. 
Then  she  would  spring  to  boring  the  turf  vigorously 
with  her  bill,  changing  her  attitude  at  each  stroke, 
alert  and  watchful,  throwing  up  the  grass  roots  and 
little  jets  of  soil,  stabbing  deeper  and  deeper,  grow- 
ing every  moment  more  and  more  excited,  till  finally 
a  fat  grub  was  seized  and  brought  forth.  Time  after 
time,  during  several  days,  I  saw  her  mine  for  grubs 
in  this  way  and  drag  them  forth.  How  did  she  know 
where  to  drill?  The  insect  was  in  every  case  an 
inch  below  the  surface.  Did  she  hear  it  gnawing  the 
roots  of  the  grasses,  or  did  she  see  a  movement  in  the 
turf  beneath  which  the  grub  was  at  work  ?  I  know 
not.  I  only  know  that  she  struck  her  game  uner- 
ringly each  time.  Only  twice  did  I  see  her  make  a 
few  thrusts  and  then  desist,  as  if  she  had  been  for 
the  moment  deceived. 

How  pugnacious  the  robin  is !  With  what  spunk 
and  spirit  he  defends  himself  against  his  enemies! 
Every  spring  I  see  the  robins  mobbing  the  blue  jays 
that  go  sneaking  through  the  trees  looking  for  eggs. 
The  crow  blackbirds  nest  in  my  evergreens,  and 
there  is  perpetual  war  between  them  and  the  robins. 

263 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

The  blackbirds  devour  the  robins'  eggs,  and  the 
robins  never  cease  to  utter  their  protest,  often 
backing  it  up  with  blows.  I  saw  two  robins  attack  a 
young  blackbird  in  the  air,  and  they  tweaked  out 
his  feathers  at  a  Kvely  rate. 

One  spring  a  pack  of  robins  killed  a  cuckoo  near 
me  that  they  found  robbing  a  nest.  I  did  not  witness 
the  killing,  but  I  have  cross-questioned  a  number 
of  people  who  did  see  it,  and  I  am  convinced  of  the 
fact.  They  set  upon  him  when  he  was  on  the  robin's 
nest,  and  left  him  so  bruised  and  helpless  beneath 
it  that  he  soon  died.  It  was  the  first  intimation  I 
had  ever  had  that  the  cuckoo  devoured  the  eggs  of 
other  birds. 

Two  other  well-authenticated  cases  have  come 
to  my  knowledge  of  robins  killing  cuckoos  (the 
black-billed)  in  May.  The  robin  knows  its  enemies, 
and  it  is  quite  certain,  I  think,  that  the  cuckoo  is 
one  of  them. 

What  a  hustler  the  robin  is !  No  wonder  he  gets 
on  in  the  world.  He  is  early,  he  is  handy,  he  is  adap- 
tive, he  is  tenacious.  Before  the  leaves  are  out  in 
April  the  female  begins  her  nest,  concealing  it  as 
much  as  she  can  in  a  tree-crotch,  or  placing  it  under 
a  shed  or  porch,  or  even  under  an  overhanging  bank 
upon  the  ground.  One  spring  a  robin  built  her  nest 
upon  the  ladder  that  was  hung  up  beneath  the  eaves 
of  the  wagon-shed.  Having  occasion  to  use  the  lad- 
der, we  placed  the  nest  on  a  box  that  stood  beneath 

264 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

it.  The  robin  was  disturbed  at  first,  but  soon  went 
on  with  her  incubating  in  the  new  and  more  exposed 
position.  The  same  spring  one  built  her  nest  upon 
a  beam  in  a  half-finished  fruit  house,  going  out  and 
in  through  the  unshingled  roof.  One  day,  just  as  the 
eggs  were  hatched,  we  completed  the  roof,  and  kept 
up  a  hammering  about  the  place  till  near  night ;  the 
mother  robin  scolded  a  good  deal,  but  she  did  not 
desert  her  young,  and  soon  found  her  way  in  and 
out  the  door. 

If  a  robin  makes  up  her  mind  to  build  upon  your 
porch,  and  you  make  up  your  mind  that  you  do  not 
want  her  there,  there  is  likely  to  be  considerable 
trouble  on  both  sides  before  the  matter  is  settled. 
The  robin  gets  the  start  of  you  in  the  morning,  and 
has  her  heap  of  dry  grass  and  straws  in  place  before 
the  jealous  broom  is  stirring,  and  she  persists  after 
you  have  cleaned  out  her  rubbish  half  a  dozen  times. 
Before  you  have  discouraged  her,  you  may  have  to 
shunt  her  off  of  every  plate  or  other  "  coign  of  van- 
tage" with  boards  or  shingles.  A  strenuous  bird 
indeed,  and  a  hustler. 

VIII.     THE   CROW 

One  very  cold  winter's  morning,  after  a  fall  of 
nearly  two  feet  of  snow,  as  I  came  out  of  my  door 
three  crows  were  perched  in  an  apple  tree  but  a  few 
rods  away.  One  of  them  uttered  a  peculiar  caw  as 
they  saw  me,  but  they  did  not  fly  away.    It  was  not 

265 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

the  usual  high-keyed  note  of  alarm.  It  may  have 
meant  "  Look  out ! "  yet  it  seemed  to  me  like  the  ask- 
ing of  alms :  "  Here  we  are,  three  hungry  neighbors 
of  yours;  give  us  food."  So  I  brought  out  the  en- 
trails and  legs  of  a  chicken,  and  placed  them  upon 
the  snow.  The  crows  very  soon  discovered  what  I 
had  done,  and  with  the  usual  suspicious  movement 
of  the  closed  wings  which  has  the  effect  of  emphasiz- 
ing the  birds'  alertness,  approached  and  devoured  the 
food  or  carried  it  away.  But  there  was  not  the  least 
strife  or  dispute  among  them  over  the  food.  Indeed, 
each  seemed  ready  to  give  precedence  to  the  others. 
In  fact,  the  crow  is  a  courtly,  fine-mannered  bird. 
Birds  of  prey  will  rend  one  another  over  their  food ; 
even  buzzards  will  make  some  show  of  mauling  one 
another  mth  their  wings ;  but  I  have  yet  to  see  any- 
thing of  the  kind  with  that  gentle  freebooter,  the 
crow.  Yet  suspicion  is  his  dominant  trait.  Anything 
that  looks  like  design  puts  him  on  his  guard.  The 
simplest  device  in  a  cornfield  usually  suffices  to 
keep  him  away.  He  suspects  a  trap.  His  wit  is  not 
deep,  but  it  is  quick,  and  ever  on  the  alert. 

One  of  our  natural  history  romancers  makes  the 
crows  flock  in  June.  But  the  truth  is,  they  do  not 
flock  till  September.  Through  the  summer  the  dif- 
ferent famihes  keep  pretty  well  together.  You  may 
see  the  old  ones  with  their  young  foraging  about 
the  fields,  the  young  often  being  fed  by  their  par- 
ents. 

^66 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

From  my  boyhood  I  have  seen  the  yearly  meet- 
ing of  the  crows  in  September  or  October,  on  a  high 
grassy  hill  or  a  wooded  ridge.  Apparently,  all  the 
crows  from  a  large  area  assemble  at  these  times; 
you  may  see  them  coming,  singly  or  in  loose  bands, 
from  all  directions  to  the  rendezvous,  till  there  are 
hundreds  of  them  together.  They  make  black  an 
acre  or  two  of  ground.  At  intervals  they  all  rise  in 
the  air,  and  wheel  about,  all  cawing  at  once.  Then 
to  the  ground  again,  or  to  the  tree-tops,  as  the  case 
may  be;  then,  rising  again,  they  send  forth  the 
voice  of  the  multitude.  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  I 
notice  that  this  rally  is  always  prehminary  to  their 
going  into  winter  quarters.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  know  just  the  nature  of  the  communication  that 
takes  place  between  them.  Not  long  afterwards, 
or  early  in  October,  they  may  be  seen  morning 
and  evening  going  to  and  from  their  rookeries. 
The  matter  seems  to  be  settled  in  these  September 
gatherings  of  the  clan.  Was  the  spot  agreed  upon 
beforehand  and  notice  served  upon  all  the  members 
of  the  tribe  ?  Our  "  school-of-the- woods  "  professors 
would  probably  infer  something  of  the  kind.  I  sus- 
pect it  is  all  brought  about  as  naturally  as  any  other 
aggregation  of  animals.  A  few  crows  meet  on  the 
hill;  they  attract  others  and  still  others.  The  rising 
of  a  body  of  them  in  the  air,  the  circling  and  caw- 
ing, may  be  an  instinctive  act  to  advertise  the  meet- 
ing to  all  the  crows  within  sight  or  hearing.    At  any 

267 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

rate,  it  has  this  effect,  and  they  come  hurrying  from 
all  points. 

What  their  various  calls  mean,  who  shall  tell  ? 
That  lusty  caw-aw,  caiv-aiv  that  one  hears  in  spring 
and  summer,  hke  the  voice  of  authority  or  com- 
mand, what  does  it  mean  ?  I  never  could  find  out. 
It  is  doubtless  from  the  male.  A  crow  will  utter  it 
while  sitting  alone  on  the  fence  in  the  pasture,  as 
well  as  when  flying  through  the  air.  The  crow's  cry 
of  alarm  is  easily  distinguished ;  all  the  other  birds 
and  wild  creatures  know  it,  and  the  hunter  who  is 
stalking  his  game  is  apt  to  swear  when  he  hears  it. 
I  have  heard  two  crows  in  the  spring,  seated  on 
a  limb  close  together,  give  utterance  to  many  curi- 
ous, guttural,  gurghng,  ventriloquial  sounds.  Wliat 
were  they  saying?  It  was  probably  some  form  of 
the  language  of  love. 

I  venture  to  say  that  no  one  has  ever  yet  heard 
the  crow  utter  a  complaining  or  a  disconsolate  note. 
He  is  always  cheery,  he  is  always  self-possessed,  he 
is  a  great  success.  Nothing  in  Bermuda  made  me 
feel  so  much  at  home  as  a  flock  of  half  a  dozen  of 
our  crows  which  I  saw  and  heard  there.  At  one  time 
they  were  very  numerous  on  the  island,  but  they 
have  been  persecuted  till  only  a  remnant  of  the 

tribe  remains. 

I 

My  friend  and  neighbor  through  the  year. 
Self-appointed  overseer 
268 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

Of  my  crops  of  fruit  and  grain. 
Of  my  woods  and  furrowed  plain, 

Claim  thy  tithings  right  and  left, 
I  shall  never  call  it  theft. 

Nature  wisely  made  the  law, 
And  I  fail  to  find  a  flaw 

In  thy  title  to  the  earth, 
And  all  it  holds  of  any  worth. 

I  like  thy  self-complacent  air, 
I  like  thy  ways  so  free  from  care, 

Thy  landlord  stroll  about  my  fields. 
Quickly  noting  what  each  yields; 

Thy  courtly  mien  and  bearing  bold. 
As  if  thy  claim  were  bought  with  gold; 

Thy  floating  shape  against  the  sky, 
When  days  are  calm  and  clouds  sail  high; 

Thy  thrifty  flight  ere  rise  of  sun, 
Thy  homing  clans  when  day  is  done. 

Hues  protective  are  not  thine, 

So  sleek  thy  coat  each  quill  doth  shine. 

Diamond  black  to  end  of  toe, 
Thy  counter-point  the  crystal  snow. 
269 


WAYS  OF  NATURE 

II 

Never  plaintive  nor  appealing, 

Quite  at  home  when  thou  art  stealing, 

c 

Always  groomed  to  tip  of  feather. 
Calm  and  trim  in  every  weather. 

Morn  till  night  my  woods  policing, 
Every  sound  thy  watch  increasing. 

Hawk  and  owl  in  tree-top  hiding 
Feel  the  shame  of  thy  deriding. 

Naught  escapes  thy  observation. 
None  but  dread  thy  accusation. 

Hunters,  prowlers,  woodland  lovers 
Vainly  seek  the  leafy  covers. 

Ill 

Noisy,  scheming,  and  predacious. 
With  demeanor  almost  gracious. 

Dowered  with  leisure,  void  of  hurry, 
Void  of  fuss  and  void  of  worry. 

Friendly  bandit,  Robin  Hood, 
Judge  and  jury  of  the  wood. 

Or  Captain  Kidd  of  sable  quill, 
Hiding  treasures  in  the  hill, 
270 


GATHERED  BY  THE  WAY 

Nature  made  thee  for  each  season, 
Gave  thee  wit  for  ample  reason, 

Good  crow  wit  that 's  always  burnished 
Like  the  coat  her  care  has  furnished. 

May  thy  numbers  ne'er  diminish, 
I'll  befriend  thee  till  life's  finish. 

May  I  never  cease  to  meet  thee, 
May  I  never  have  to  eat  thee. 

And  mayest  thou  never  have  to  fare  so 
That  thou  playest  the  part  of  scarecrow. 


INDEX 


Adder,  Mowing,  17. 

Altruism  among  animals,  23. 

Ammophila,  117. 

Angler  (Z/opMws  piscatorius),  107. 

Animals,  the  author's  attitude  in 
regard  to  the  intelligence  of,  v, 
vi ;  nature  of  the  intelligence  of, 
1-3;  sources  of  the  intelligence 
of,  4 ;  the  sentimental  attitude 
towards,  59-61 ;  emotions  and 
intellect  of,  64  ;  language  of,  64; 
curiosity  of,  64;  altruism  of, 
65 ;  punishment  and  discipline 
among,  65 ;  the  three  factors  that 
shape  their  lives,  66;  imitation 
among,  66-70 ;  learning  by  expe- 
rience, 70-73;  variation  in,  73; 
instinct  in,  73-83  ;  incapable  of 
reflection,  77,  78;  their  know- 
ledge compared  with  man's,  80, 
81 ;  imitation  among,  not  akin  to 
teaching,  83-86;  belief  in  regard 
to  teaching  among,  87;  play  of  ,87, 
99, 100  ;  communication  among, 
87-98;  fear  in,  89,  90;  ears  of,  95; 
telepathy  among,  96-98;  their 
habits  the  same  everywhere, 
101-103;  courtship  among,  104; 
Stories  of  poisoning  among,  105, 
106 ;  stories  of  trapping  and  fish- 
ing among,  106,  107 ;  individual- 
ity among,  118, 119  ;  variation  in, 
120,  121;  ignorance  of,  123-125; 
perceptive  intelligence  of,  126; 
partakers  of  the  universal  intel- 
ligence, 128-130;  know  what  is 
necessary  for  them  to  know,  131 ; 
their  knowledge  inherited,  132; 
wise  in  relation  to  their  food  and 
their  enemies,  133;  and  the  art 
of  healing,  134 ;  protective  color- 
ation of,  138-140 ;  their  fear  of 


poison,  140 ;  association  of  ideas 
in,  141,  142;  emotions  of,  143;  no 
ethical  sense  in,  144,  145;  auto- 
matism of,  146 ;  and  the  use  of 
medicine,  147;  the  truth  about 
them  what  is  wanted,  147-149 ; 
the  thinking  of,  instinct  in,  151- 
170;  have  perceptions  but  no 
conceptions,  160 ;  first  steps  of 
intelligence  in,  161,  162;  limita- 
tions of  intelligence  in,  163-168 ; 
automatism  of  trained  animals, 
166;  incredible  stories  of,  175- 
184;  stories  of  surgery  among, 
180-182  ;  true  interpretation  of 
seeming  acts  of  reason  in,  184- 
187, 189, 190 ;  absence  of  language 
among,  187-189 ;  creatures  of  rou- 
tine, 190;  the  humanization  of, 
195,  196;  nature  of  their  intel- 
ligence, 209-230;  their  minds 
incapable  of  improvement,  220- 
222;  the  victims  of  habits,  222; 
popular  notion  of  teaching 
among,  233,  234 ;  nature  of  the 
homing  faculty  of,  235 ;  Bostock 
on  the  training  of  wild,  239- 
242  ;  mimicry  among,  248-250  ; 
instinct  in,  255-261. 

Antelope,  85. 

Apple  trees,  protecting  them- 
selves from  cattle,  153. 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  72. 

"Atlantic  Monthly,  The,"  article 
in,  V,  vi,  173. 

Baboon,  65. 

Barrington,  Daines,  68. 

Barrus,  Dr.  Clara,  her  description 

of  the  woodcock's  song  and  song 

flight,  43. 
Bean,  the,  intelligence  of,  1, 2. 


273 


INDEX 


Bear,  a  caged,  76. 

Bear,  black,  260. 

Beaver,  166, 167 ;  nature  of  his  in- 
telligence, 209-211, 

Beebe,  C.  William,  on  instinct  and 
reason  in  birds,  215-217. 

Bees,  24. 

Belief,  scientific  grounds  for,  173- 
179. 

Birds,  mistakes  of,  4-6 ;  their  nest- 
building,  4,   5,  70,  71;   fighting 

•  their  reflections,  5,  6;  taking  ad- 
vantage of  man's  protection  for 
their  nests,  6,  7 ;  probably  make 
no  improvement  in  nest-build- 
ing or  singing,  70,  71 ;  learn  cun- 
ning by  experience,  71 ;  instincts 
connected  with  parasitism,  79, 
80;  communication  in  flocks  of, 
96-98;  courtship  of,  103, 104  ;  ac- 
tivities of  the  two  sexes  among, 
111-114;  song  contests  among, 
114, 115 ;  and  glass,  127 ;  incubat- 
ing-habits  of,  135 ;  shading  mate 
and  young  from  sun,  137,  138; 
their  knowledge  of  the  value  of 
protective  coloration,  138-140; 
migration  of,  186;  their  affection 
for  their  young,  215 ;  and  shell- 
fish, 216 ;  have  no  power  of  initi- 
ative, 232,  233 ;  their  handling  of 
strings,  246-248;  instinct  in,  256- 
261;  variability  in,  258-261. 

Bird's-nests,  an  epitome  of  wild 
nature,  109;  haphazard  design 
in,  109, 110. 

Bird-songs,  the  power  to  hear,  29 ; 
not  music,  29 ;  elusiveness  of, 
30 ;  a  part  of  nature,  30 ;  our 
pleasure  in  them  from  associa- 
tion, 31-34;  songs  of  caged  birds, 
32,  35;  the  wing-song,  39-44;  in- 
dividual variation  in  musical 
ability,  44-46;  acquired  by  imi- 
tation, 67,  68. 

Bittern,    least   {Ardetta     exilis), 

eating  her  eggs,  Ill- 
Blackbird,  crow,  or  gracMe  {Quis- 
caltis  quiscula  subsp.),  catching 
a  fish,  176;  enmity  with  robins, 
263,  264. 


Blackbird,  English,  song  of,  45, 

227. 

Blackbird,  red-winged.  See  Ked- 
shouldered  starling. 

Black-knot,  27. 

Bluebird  {Sialia  sialis),  hearing 
the,  29. 

Bobolink  (Dolichonyx  oryzivo- 
Tus),  its  song  in  the  home  mead- 
ows, 36 ;  variation  in  song,  69; 
with  defective  song,  116. 

Body,  the,  intelligence  of,  128. 

Bolles,  Frank,  18. 

Bostock,  Frank  C,  his  The  Train- 
ing of  Wild  Animals,  239-242. 

Brewster,  William,  22. 

Buds,  formation  of,  50,  51. 

Bumblebee,  hibernation  of,  49. 

Burmeister,  quoted  on  bees,  200. 

Calf,  a  wild,  214;  a  yearling  and 
its  muzzle,  237. 

Canary-bird,  159;  an  incredible 
story  of  a,  177,  178. 

Carlisle,  Bishop  of,  148. 

Cats,  66,  67,  73;  fear  of  dogs,  75; 
talking  with  the  ears,  94,  95; 
playing  with  mice,  100;  watch- 
ing a  mouse-hole,  186,  187;  hu- 
man qualities  of,  225,  226. 

Cat  tribe,  their  method  of  hunt- 
ing, 183, 184. 

Cedar-bird  (Ampelis  cedrorum), 
notes  of,  46;  nest-building  of, 
112  ;  and  strings,  247,  248  ;  no 
song  impulse  in,  257. 

Chapman,  Frank  M.,  his  story  of 
a  least  bittern.  111. 

Chewink,  or  towhee  {Pipilo 
erythrophthalmus),  the  "  Her- 
mit's "  story,  93. 

Chickadee  (Parus  atricapillus), 
flight  of  a  young,  70;  tameness 
of,  205. 

Chipmunk,  159. 

Coon.    See  Raccoon. 

Cow,  the,  ignorance  of,  123,  124 ; 
187,  221. 

Cowbird  {Molothrus  ater),  79,  80, 
156, 157 ;  an  incredible  statement 
regarding,  178, 179,  220. 


274 


INDEX 


Coyote,  or  prairie  wolf,  82,  83, 189. 

Crab,  hermit,  155. 

Crabs,  defensive  instinct  in,  169, 
170. 

Crossbills  {Loxia  sp.),  feeding  on 
young  peaclies,  261. 

Crow,  American  {Corvus  brachy- 
rhynchos),  winter  quarters  of, 
50;  the  ''Hermit's  "  story  of  a 
crow,  93;  nature  of  his  intelli- 
gence, 136,  137;  notes  of,  188, 268; 
story  of  a  court  of  justice,  198, 
199;  maltreating  a  tame  crow, 
199;  cunning  of,  204;' a  misinter- 
preted incident,  233,  234 ;  feed- 
ing, 265,  266;  suspiciousness  of, 
266;  flocking  of,  266,  267;  mean- 
ing of  calls  of,  268 ;  disposition 
of,  268;  in  Bermuda,  268;  lines 
on,  268. 

Crow,  white-necked  African,  135, 
136. 

Crows  and  shell-fish,  2. 

Cuckoos,  249  ;  eating  birds'  eggs, 
264;  kiUed  by  robins,  264. 

Darwin,  Charles,  65,  67,  73,  75,  76, 
79,  82,  83,  87,  127, 136,  149,  177, 198. 

December,  the  month  when  Na- 
ture closes  her  doors,  47. 

Deer,  84,  85,  185. 

Dipper.    See  Water  ouzel. 

Dogs,  imitativeness  of,  66;  show 
gleams  of  reason,  76;  85, 88 ;  feel- 
ings of  shame,  guilt,  and  re- 
venge ascribed  to,  144, 145 ;  car- 
rying a  stick  through  a  fence, 
16^166;  language  of,  188;  Mae- 
terlinck on,  192, 193 ;  John  Muir's 
story  of  a  dog,  193, 194;  Egerton 
Young's  book  about,  194;  hiding 
a  bone,  205 ;  companionableness 
of,  205,  206;  211,  221;  rational  in- 
telligence in,  223-225 ;  partake  of 
the  master's  nature,  224;  story 
of  a  pointer,  224,  225. 

Dove,  turtle,  or  mourning  dove 
{Zenaidura  macroura),  occu- 
pying a  robin's  nest,  7. 

Duck.    See  Mallard. 

Duck,  eider.    See  American  eider. 


Duck,  wild,  wounded,  213. 
Duck,  wood  (Aix  sponsa),  nest, 
eggs,  and  young  of,  21-23. 

Eagle,  103. 

Eagle,  bald  {Halioeetus  leucoceph- 
altis),  72,  213. 

Ears,  movements  of,  95. 

Eider,  American  (Somateria  dres- 
seri),  killing  mussels,  180-182. 

Elephants,  76 ;  protecting  them- 
selves from  flies,  138;  an  incred- 
ible story,  145,  146. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  24 ;  his 
lines  on  the  sparrow's  song,  32, 
102. 

Evolution,  170,  171. 

Fabre,  the  French  naturalist,  158. 

Farm,  the  author's,  101. 

Fear,  instinctive,  74-76;  use  of, 
89;  indiscriminating,  89;  panics, 
90. 

Finch,  purple  (Carpodacus  pur- 
pureus),  song  flight  of,  44;  song 
of,  44. 

Fish  and  glass,  127. 

Flocks,  communication  in,  96-98. 

Fly,  mimicking  the  honey-bee, 
250. 

Flycatcher,  great  crested  (Myiar- 
chus  crinitus),  nesting-habits  of, 
17-19. 

Forest  and  Stream,  69,  93. 

Fox,  capturing  a  rabbit,  8;  72; 
poisoning  stories  of,  105 ;  stories 
of  crab-catching,  106, 107 ;  intel- 
ligence of,  141,  142;  misinter- 
preted stories  of,  199;  and  dead- 
fall, 222,  223;  cunning  of,  223. 

Frog,  wood,  hibernation  of,  48. 

Frogs,  hibernation  of,  49. 

Froude,  2. 

Fruits,  colors  of,  251-254. 

Golden-eye  (Clangula  clangnJa 
americana),  young  leaving 
nest,  22. 

Goldfinch  {Astragalinns  tristis), 
flight  song  of,  43, 44 ;  other  notes 
of,  44;  musical  festivals  of,  104. 


275 


INDEX 


Gophers,  an  interesting  incident, 

237,  238. 

Grackle.    See  Crow  blackbird. 

Grebe,  and  loon,  235,  236. 

Gregariousness,  its  effect  on  indi- 
viduality, 118,  119, 

Groos,  Karl,  his  work  on  The  Play 
of  Animals,  87,  100. 

Grouse,  flight  of,  4. 

Grouse,  rufEed  (Bonasa  uvfibel- 
lus),  71,  94;  drumming  of,  177, 
257;  the  "  Hermit's  "  incredible 
story  of  a,  179, 180 ;  feeble  vocal 
powers  of,  257. 

Grouse,  spruce,  or  Canada  grouse 
{Canachites  canadensis  cana- 
ce),  260. 

Hamerton,  Philip  GUbert,  his 
Chapters  on  Animals,  124;  237. 

Hawk,  broad  -  winged  (Buteo 
platypterus),  74. 

Hawk,  fish,  or  American  osprey 
{Pandion  haliaetxis  caroli- 
nensis),  213. 

Hawk,  marsh  (Circus  hudsonius), 
a  young,  99. 

Hawk,  red-shouldered  {Buteo  li- 
neatus),  222,  223. 

Hawk,  red-tailed  (Buteo  borealis 
and  subsp.),  102. 

Hawks,  alleged  mimicry  among, 
248,  249. 

"Hermit,"  his  false  natural  his- 
tory, 93-95;  his  stories  of  cow- 
birds  and  a  grouse,  178, 179. 

Hibernation,  48,  49. 

Hickory  nut,  251,  252. 

Home  Life  on  an  Ostrich  Farm, 
135,  136. 

Homing  instinct,  the,  a  remark- 
able trait,  53;  an  instance  of  its 
workings,  53-57;  99;  nature  of, 
235. 

Honeysuckle,  a  shoot  of,  24,  25. 

Horses,  ignorant  fear  in,  123;  self- 
destruction  of,  146 ;  162 ;  a  mare 
and  her  blind  companion,226,227. 

Hyla,  peeping,  hibernation  of,  48; 
a  second  period  of  peeping,  231, 
232. 


Indigo-bird  (Oj/anospisa  cyanea), 
flight  song  of,  44. 

Individuality,  effects  of  solitude 
and  gregariousness  upon,  118, 
119. 

Industries  of  Animals,  137. 

Inferences,  right,  231-238. 

Insects  stilled  by  the  cold,  49,  50. 

Instinct,  1 ;  demoralized,  73,  74 ; 
one  instinct  overcoming  an- 
other, 74 ;  makes  up  nine  tenths 
of  the  lives  of  our  wild  neigh- 
bors, 74;  a  kind  of  natural  rea- 
son, 76;  in  connection  with  par- 
asitism, 79,  80;  importance  of, 
81;  origin  and  development  of, 
81,  82;  not  always  inerrant,  155; 
machine-like  action  of,  158, 159; 
non-progressive,  212 ;  nature  of, 
254-257;  variability  of,  257-261. 

Jackals,  142. 

Jackdaw,  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle's 
story  of  a,  148. 

Jay,  hlae  (Cyanocitta  cristata), 
Mr.  Keyser's  young  bird,  69, 
70 ;  hiding  instinct  of,  161 ;  251, 
263. 

Jay,  Canada  (Perisoreus  canaden- 
sis), 204,  260. 

Jefferies,  Richard,  131, 197,  203. 

Jesse,  Edward,  his  story  of  some 
swallows,  148. 

Katydids,  49. 

Kea,  260,  261. 

Kearton,  Richard,  his  story  of  an 
osprey,  137;  on  the  wren's  nest, 
138,  139;  on  a  colony  of  terns, 
139;  his  experiments  with 
wooden  eggs,  227, 228;  on  instinct 
in  animals,  257. 

Keyser,  Leander  S.,  his  experi- 
ments with  young  birds,  69, 
70. 

Kingbird  (Tyrannus  tyrannus), 
177. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  his  Jungle 
Book,  14;  his  The  White  Seal, 
14. 

Kittens,  75. 


276 


INDEX 


Language,  a  necessity  to  thinking, 
187,  188. 

Lark.   See  Skylark. 

Lark,  prairie  horned  (Otocoris 
alpestris  praticola),  spreading 
of,  36,  37;  song  and  song  flight 
of,  37,  38;  killed  by  the  locomo- 
tive, 38. 

Leaves,  persistent  and  deciduous, 
51. 

Lion,  Bostock  on  the  training  of, 
239-241. 

Loco- weed,  83. 

Locusts,  2. 

Loon  {Gavia  imber),  180,  184  ; 
under  ice,  235,  236. 

liophiiis  piscatorius,  107. 

Lubbock,  Sir  John,  on  recognition 
among  bees  and  ants,  200. 

Lynx,  Canada,  incredible  story  of, 
183,  184. 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  on  the  bee, 
15;  on  the  dog,  192, 193 ;  his  Life 
of  the  Bee,  201. 

Mallard,  domestic,  finding  its  way 
home,  53-57. 

Man,  progress  of,  26,  27;  the  line 
that  divides  him  from  the  lower 
orders,  80,  81 ;  animal  origin  of, 
229,230;  instinct  in,  255;  learn- 
ing through  practice,  256. 

Martin,  Mrs.  Annie,  her  story  of  a 
crow,  135,  136. 

Meadowlark  {Sturnella  magna), 
song  of,  34 ;  flight  song  of,  43 ; 
232,  233. 

Meadowlark,  "Western  (Sturnella 
magna  neglecta) ,  song  of,  103. 

Mice  and  traps,  23,  24. 

Michelet,  147. 

Mimicry,  248-250. 

Mongoose,  72. 

Monkeys,  capable  of  the  simpler 
forms  of  reason,  127. 

Moose,  a  habit  of,  142. 

Moral  code,  evolution  of,  23. 

Morgan,  C.  Lloyd,  143,  149;  his 
experiment  with  his  dog,  164, 
165. 

Moth,  hummingbird,  249,  250. 


Mouse,    white-footed,    or    deer 

mouse,  an  incident,  163,  164. 
Muir,  John,  his  story  of  his  dog 

Stickeen,  193, 194. 
Mullet,  96. 

Mushrooms,  animals  eating,  83. 
Muskrat,  211. 

Mussels,  ducks  drowning,  180-182. 
My  Dogs  of  the  Northland,  by 

Egerton  Young,  194. 
"  My  friend  and  neighbor  through 

the  year,"  268. 

Natural  history  romancers,  influ- 
ence of,  13,  14;  methods  of,  16, 
17. 

Nature,  an  endless  experimenter, 
24,  139;  prodigality  of,  27;  like  a 
hunter,  27 ;  bound  to  hit  the 
mark,  28  ;  the  tendency  to  senti- 
mentalize, 108 ;  reaches  her  ends 
by  devious  paths,  110  ;  the  think- 
ing of,  152;  literary  treatment 
of,  191-208 ;  the  interpretation 
of,  196-201,  203-205 ;  wisdom  of, 
220. 

Newts,  migrations  of,  219. 

Nightingale,  carrying  nest,  15,  16; 
song  of,  35 ;  song  of  a  caged 
bird,  35;  a  song  contest,  115. 

North  American  Review,  an  arti- 
cle in  the,  61. 

Nuthatch,  162. 

Nuts,  protective  colors  of,  251, 252. 

Observing,  rarity  of  accurate,  107, 
108,  238. 

Olaus,  his  fox  and  crab  story,  106. 

Oriole,  Baltimore  {Icterus  gal- 
bula),  a  published  account  of  a 
nest,  61-63;  Scott's  experiment 
with  young,  68;  its  nest  a  marvel 
of  blind  skill,  110;  its  use  of 
strings  in  nest-buUding,  247;  an 
incredible  story  of,  248 ;  varia- 
bility of,  259,  260  ;  song  of,  259, 
260;  destructive  in  vineyards, 
261. 

Oriole,  orchard  {Icterus  spurius), 
260. 

Osprey,  137.  See  also  Fish  hawk. 


277 


INDEX 


Ostricli,  134, 135. 

Ousel,  water,  or  dipper,  73. 

Oven-bird  {Seiurus  aurocapilliis), 
•walk  of,  40;  ordinary  song  of, 
40,  41;  flight  song  of,  41,  42. 

Peacock,  strutting  before  a  crow, 
217. 

Peckham,  George  W.  and  Eliza- 
beth G.,  their  work  on  the  soli- 
tary wasps,  116. 

Pelicans,  driving  fish,  216. 

Phoebe-bird  {Sayortiis  phcebe), 
nesting-habits  of,  5,  157,  158  ; 
nest-building  of,  112;  cowbird's 
egg  in  nest  of,  157;  an  instance 
of  stupidity,  168, 169. 

Pigeon,  passenger,  or  wild  pigeon 
{JEctopistes  migratorius),  flocks 
of,  96,  97. 

Pike,  127. 

Plants,  intelligence  of,  128, 129. 

Plover,  ring,  rejecting  counter- 
feit eggs,  227,  228. 

Poison,  fear  of,  140. 

Poisoning  among  animals,  105, 106. 

Porcupine,  its  lack  of  wit,  3;  186; 
an  encounter  with  a,  242-244; 
easily  killed,  244;  stories  of  roll- 
ing into  a  ball,  244,  245;  C.  G.  D. 
Roberts  on,  245,  246. 

Prairie-dogs,  their  fear  of  weeds 
and  grass,  189. 

Protective  coloration,  139, 140. 

Quail,  or  bob- white  {Colinus  vir- 
ginianus),  nests  of,  6. 

Rabbit,  nest  of ,  7;  intelligence  of, 
7  ;  pursued  by  a  mink  or  weasel, 
7,  8;  pursued  by  a  fox,  8;  imi- 
tating a  monkey,  66. 

Rabbit,  jack,  184  ;  running  in  a 
furrow,  213. 

Raccoon,  washing  food,  3;  134. 

Rats,  72,  73, 106, 184,  185. 

"Real  and  Sham  Natural  His- 
tory," the  author's  article,  v,  vi. 

Reason,  an  artificial  light,  212. 

Roberts,  Charles  Gr.  D.,  on  the  por- 
cupine, 245,  246. 


Robin  (Merula  migratoria),  nests 
of,  4,  5,  169,  264,  265;  unusual 
songs  of,  45,  68;  154, 155;  nesting 
on  turn-table,  169;  and  string, 
246,  247;  variability  of  nesting- 
habits  of,  258,  259 ;  closely  asso- 
ciated with  country  life,  261, 
262;  boring  for  grubs,  262,  263; 
pugnacity  of,  263;  at  war  with 
blue  jays,  crow  blackbigis,  and 
cuckoos,  263,  264;  a  iustler,  264, 
265. 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  15, 16,  73, 106,  142; 
untrustworthiness  of  his  Ani- 
mal Ititelligence,  147,  148. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  his  The  Wil- 
deryiess  H^inter,  72, 142;  quoted 
on  teaching  among  animals,  84- 
86;  88, 103;  quoted  on  the  moose, 
1,42;  149;  his  story  of  a  horse, 
235. 

Rooster,  "  teaching  "  a  young  one, 
94 ;  calling  a  hen,  190. 

Ruskin,  John,  197. 

St.  John,  Charles,  76 ;  his  story  of 
a  fox,  142;  149. 

Sapsucker,  yellow-beUied.  See 
Yellow-bellied  woodpecker. 

Scallops,  129,  130. 

Schoolchildren,  letters  from,  1. 

"  School  of  the  woods,"  the,  99. 

Scott,  W.  E.  D.,  68. 

Selous,  Edmund,  on  a  song  con- 
test between  nightingales,  115. 

Seton,  Ernest  Thompson,  184,  203. 

Sexual  selection,  116. 

Sharp,  Dallas  Lore,  on  the  crested 
flycatcher,  18. 

Shrike  {Lanius  sp.),  assisting 
wounded  mate,  24;  250. 

Skunk,  dull  wits  of,  4;  killing  a 
maimed  one,  203. 

Skunk-cabbage,  52. 

Skylark,  song  of,  32-34,  37;  in 
America,  33,  34;  Scotchman  and, 
33 ;  Irishman  and,  34;  wooing  a 
vesper  sparrow,  40;  a  caged,  69. 

Snake,  black,  16. 

Snakes,  and  the  power  of  fasci- 
nation, 16. 


278 


INDEX 


Solitude,  its  effect  on  individu- 
ality, 118, 119. 

Sparrow,  bush,  or  field  sparrow 
{Spizella  jpusilla),  nest  of,  259. 

Sparrow,  chipping  {Spizella  soci- 
alis),  nest  of,  142,  143,  259;  154; 
an  unusual  song  of,  259. 

Sparrow,  English  (Passer  domes- 
ticus),  singing  like  a  canary,  68, 
257;  eggs  of,  120;  a  case  of  blind 
instinct  in,  160. 

Sparrow,  song  (Melospiza  cine- 
rea  melodia),  a  city  girl's  im- 
pression of  its  song,  31;  a  tal- 
ented singer,  45;  the  "  Hermit's  " 
story,  93,  94;  variability  of, 
259. 

Sparrow,  vesper  {Pooecetes  gra- 
mineus),  flight  song  of,  39 ;  lark- 
like in  color  and  markings,  40 ; 
wooed  by  a  skylark,  40 ;  low  de- 
gree of  variability  in,  259. 

Spring,  the  real  beginning  of,  51, 
52. 

Squirrel,  gray,  75,  133. 

Squirrel,  red,  nesting-material  of, 
20 ;  a  stupid,  125 ;  and  chestnuts, 
132 ;  and  maple  sap,  132 ;  and 
green  apples  and  pears,  133;  155, 
251. 

Squirrels,  and  chestnut  burs,  3; 
their  knowledge  of  nuts,  133; 
smelling  with  the  whole  body, 
133. 

Starling,  red-shouldered,  or  red- 
winged  blackbird  {Agelaius 
phoeniceus),  song  of,  34. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  on  the 
English  blackbird's  songs,  45. 

Sumac,  fruit  of,  254. 

Swallow,  cliff  {Petroehelidon  luni- 
frons),  nesting  of,  155, 157. 

Swallows,  93. 

Swift,  chimney  {Chcetura  pela- 
gica),  change  of  nesting-site,  8; 
getting  nesting-material,  8, 9;  in 
the  chimney,  9;  a  creature  of 
the  air,  9,  10;  spring  and  fall 
congregations  in  large  chim- 
neys, 10-13;  drumming  in  chim- 
ney, 183. 


Swimming,  78,  79. 
Sycamore,  fruit  of,  251. 

Tanager,  scarlet  {Piranga  ery- 
throTnelas),  nesting  in  a  cherry 
tree,  6,  7. 

Teaching  among  animals,  83-94, 
233,  234. 

Telepathy,  96-98. 

Terns,  139. 

Thoreauv  Henry  D.,  his  "  night- 
warbler,"  42,  153,  195,  203. 

Thrush,  hermit  {Hylocichla  gut- 
tata pallasii),  with  an  impedi- 
ment, 116. 

Thrush,  song,  in  the  Trossachs, 
46;  and  wooden  eggs,  227. 

Thrush,  Wilson's.    See  Veery. 

Thrush,  wood  {Hyloeichla  miiste- 
lina),  nest  of,  5;  a  "singing- 
school,"  94 ;  nest-building  of, 
113,  114,  155,  156 ;  ways  of,  113, 
114 ;  song  contest  of,  114,  115. 

Toad,  going  into  the  ground,  49. 

Towhee.    See  Chewink. 

Training  of  Wild  Animals,  The, 
by  Frank  C.  Bostock,  239-242. 

Traps,  the  fear  of,  89. 

Tumble-bug,  26. 

Turkey,  75,  214. 

Van  Dyke,  Henry,  his  poem  on  the 
song  sparrow,  31. 

Variation,  73;  a  less  active  prin- 
ciple now  than  formerly,  120; 
various  degrees  of,  120,  121; 
causes  of,  121. 

Veery,  or  "Wilson's  thrush  {Hylo- 
eichla fiiscescens),  song  of,  34, 35. 

"Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,  87;  on 
mimicry,  249,  251. 

Warbler,  black  and  white  creeping 
{Mniotilta  varia),  nest  and  egg 
of,  111. 

Warbler,  grasshopper,  227. 

Warbler,  yellow  {Dendroica  ces- 
tiva),  and  cowbird's  egg,  80, 156, 
157,  229. 

Ward,  Lester  F.,  his  Pure  Soci- 
ology, 112. 


279 


INDEX 


Wasps,  solitary,  ways  of,  116-118 ; 
instinct  in,  158,  159;  intelligence 
of,  164. 

"Wasps,  stinging  instinct  in  sting- 
less,  169,  170. 

Waxwing,  cedar.   See  Cedar-bird. 

Weasel,  rescuing  young,  24. 

White,  Gilbert,  on  the  swallow's 
nest-building,  167,  168;  203;  his 
account  of  his  old  tortoise,  207. 

Whitman,  Walt,  quoted,  206. 

Wolf,  prairie.   See  Coyote. 

Wolves,  66. 

Wood-borers,  49,  50. 

Woodchuck,  72. 

Woodcock  {Philohela  minor), 
song  and  song  flight  of,  42,  43. 

Woodpecker,  downy  {Dryobates 


pubescens  medianits),  dispos- 
sessed by  flying-squirrels,  20; 
trying  to  evict  a  hairy  wood- 
pecker, 21. 

Woodpecker,  hairy  {Dryobates 
villosus),  and  downy  woodpeck- 
er, 21. 

Woodpecker,  yellow-bellied,  or 
yellow-bellied  sapsucker  {Sphy- 
rapicus  varius),  91. 

Wren,  European,  nest  of,  138, 
139. 

Wren,  house  (Troglodytes  aedon), 
nesting-materials  of,  19 ;  young 
of,  162;  handling  twigs,  166. 

Young,  Egerton,  his  My  Dogs  of 
the  Northland,  194. 


Electrotyped  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &*  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mast.,  U.  S.  A. 


Date 

Due 

! 

-1  ''^ 

** 

NOV     ^ 

^  /987     - 

01 

JAN     4  K 

SEP  1 

6  2002 

! 

f) 

BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031   01766232  1 


